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THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF 

NORTH  CAROLINA 

AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


THE  COLLECTION  OF 
NORTH  CAROLINIANA 

ENDOWED  BY 

JOHN  SPRUNT  HILL 
CLASS  OF  1889 


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// 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 


\^HV**^*^ 


Charleston  is  the  last  stronghold  of  a  unified  American  upper  class;  the  last  remain- 
ing American  city  in  which  Madeira  and  Port  and  noblesse  oblige  are  fully 
and  widely  understood,  and  are  employed  according  to  the  best  traditions 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 


A  SECOND  TRIP  "ABROAD  AT  HOME"  BY 


JULIAN  STREET 


WITH  PICTORIAL  SIDELIGHTS 

BY 

WALLACE  MORGAN 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1917 


Copyright,  191 7,  by 
The  Century  Co. 

Copyright,  1916,  igi;,  by 
P.  F.  Collier  &  Son,  Inc. 

Published,  November,   igiy 


I 


TO  MY  AUNT 
AND  SECOND  MOTHER 

JULIA  ROSS  LOW 


FOREWORD 

Though   much   has   been   written   of   the   South,    it 
seems  to  me  that  this  part  of  our  country  is  less  under- 
stood than  any  other  part.     Certainly  the  South,  itself, 
feels  that  this  is  true.     Its  relationship  to  the  North 
makes  me  think  of  nothing  so  much  as  that  of  a  pretty, 
sensitive  wife,  to  a  big,  strong,  amiable,  if  somewhat 
thick-skinned    husband.     These    two    had    one    great 
quarrel  which  nearly  resulted  in  divorce.     He  thought 
her   headstrong;    she   thought   him   overbearing.     The 
quarrel  made  her  ill ;  she  has  been  for  some  time  recover- 
ing.    But  though  they  have  settled  their  difficulties  and 
are  living  again  in  amity  together,  and  though  he,  man- 
like, has  half  forgotten  that  they  ever  quarreled  at  all, 
now  that  peace  reigns  in  the  house  again,  she  has  not 
forgotten.     There  still  lingers  in  her  mind  the  feeling 
that  he  never  really  understood  her,  that  he  never  un- 
derstood her  problems  and  her  struggles,  and  that  he 
never  will.     And  it  seems  to  me  further  that,  as  is 
usually  the  case  with  wives  who  consider  themselves  mis- 
understood, the  fault  is  partly,  but  by  no  means  alto- 
gether, hers.     He,  upon  one  hand,  is  inclined  to  pass  the 
matter  off  with  a :     "There,  there !     It 's  all  over  now. 
Just  be  good  and  forget  it !"  while  she,  in  the  depths  of 
her  heart,   retanis  a  little  bit  of  wistfulness,   a  little 


FOREWORD 

wounded  feeling,  which  causes  her  to  say  to  herself: 
'Thank  God  our  home  was  not  broken  up,  but — I  wish 
that  he  could  be  a  little  more  considerate,  sometimes,  in 
view  of  all  that  I  have  suffered." 

For  my  part,  I  am  the  humble  but  devoted  friend  of 
the  family.  Having  known  him  first,  having  been  from 
boyhood  his  companion,  I  may  perhaps  have  sym- 
pathized with  him  in  the  beginning.  But  since  I  have 
come  to  know  her,  too,  that  is  no  longer  so.  And  I 
do  think  I  know  her — proud,  sensitive,  high-strung, 
generous,  captivating  beauty  that  she  is!  Moreover, 
after  the  fashion  of  many  another  "friend  of  the 
family,"  I  have  fallen  in  love  with  her.  Loving  her 
from  afar,  I  send  her  as  a  nosegay  these  chapters  gath- 
ered in  her  own  gardens.  If  some  of  the  flowers  are  of 
a  kind  for  which  she  does  not  care,  if  some  have  thorns, 
even  if  some  are  only  weeds,  I  pray  her  to  remember 
that  from  what  was  growing  in  her  gardens  I  was  forced 
to  make  my  choice,  and  to  believe  that,  whatever  the  de- 
fects of  mv  bouquet,  it  is  meant  to  be  a  bunch  of  roses. 

J.  s. 

October  i,  1917. 


vui 


The  Author  makes  his  grateful  acknowledgments  to 
the  old  friends  and  the  new  ones  who  assisted  him  upon 
this  journey.  And  once  more  he  desires  to  express  his 
gratitude  to  the  friend  and  fellow-traveler  whose  illus- 
trations are  far  from  being  his  only  contribution  to  this 
volume. 

-J.  s. 

New  York,  October,  191 7. 


CONTENTS 

THE  BORDERLAND 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I      ON  JOURNEYS  THROUGH  THE  STATES 3 

II      A   BALTIMORE   EVENING 13 

III      WHERE   THE   CLIMATES    MEET 27 

IV      TRIUMPHANT   DEFEAT 38 

V     TERRAPIN  AND  THINGS 44 

VI      DOUGHOREGAN    MANOR   AND   THE   CARROLLS 53 

VII      A    RARE   OLD    TOWN 69 

VIII      WE   MEET   THE   HAMPTON   GHOST 80 

IX      ARE    WE    STANDARDIZED? 89 

X      harper's    ferry    and   JOHN    BROWN ...  97 

XI      THE  VIRGINIAS  AND  THE  WASHINGTONS I05 

XII      I   RIDE   A    HORSE 1 1? 

XIII      INTO    THE   OLD    DOMINION I36 

XIV      CHARLOTTESVILLE    AND    MONTICELLO I50 

XV      THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  VIRGINIA 159 

XVI      FOX-HUNTING    IN     VIRGINIA 169 

XVII      "a  CERTAIN  PARTY" 186 

XVIII      THE   LEGACY    OF    HATE 193 

XIX  "YOU-ALL"  AND  OTHER  SECTIONAL  MISUNDERSTANDINGS    .       .       .  203 

XX      IDIOMS    AND    ARISTOCRACY 214 

XXI      THE  CONFEDERATE  CAPITAL 222 

XXII      RANDOM  RICHMOND  NOTES 233 

XXIII      JEDGE   CRUTCHFIELd's    COT 242 

XXIV      NORFOLK    AND    ITS     NEIGHBORHOOD 248 

XXV      COLONEL   TAYLOR   AND   GENERAL   LEE 258 

THE  HEART  OF  THE  SOUTH 

XXVI      RALEIGH     AND    JOSEPHUS    DANIELS 273 

XXVII      ITEMS   FROM    "tHE   OLD   NORTH    STATe" 285 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXVIII      UNDER    ST.    MICHAEl's    CHIMES J(jO 

XXIX      HISTORY     AND     ARISTOCRACY .    3IJ 

XXX      POLITICS,    A    NEWSPAPER    AND    ST.    CECILIA 326 

XXXI      "gULLa"    and    THE    BACK    COUNTRY 338 

XXXII      OUT    OF    THE    PAST 349 

XXXIII      ALIVE    ATLANTA 356 

XXXIV      GEORGIA     JOURNALISM 369 

XXXV      SO.ME    ATLANTA     INSTITUTIONS 384 

XXXVI      A    BIT    OF    RURAL    GEORGIA 392 

XXXVII      A    YOUNG    METROPOLIS 4O3 

XXXVIII      BUSY  BIRMINGHAM 417 

XXXIX      AN    ALLEGORY    OF    ACHIEVEMENT 426 

XL     THE    ROAD    TO    ARCADY 44O 

XLI      A     MISSISSIPPI     TOWN 447 

XLII      OLD  TALES   AND  A   NEW   GAME 458 

XLIII      OUT   OF   THE  LONG   AGO 467 

XLIV      THE   GIRL    HE   LEFT   BEHIND    HIM 474 

XLV      VICKSBURG    OLD   AND    NEW 482 

XLVI      SHREDS    AND    PATCHES 494 

XLVII      THE    BAFFLING     MISSISSIPPI 5OO 

XLVIII      OLD   RIVER   DAYS 508 

XLIX      WHAT    MEMPHIS    HAS    ENDURED 518 

L      MODERN    MEMPHIS 535 

FARTHEST  SOUTH 

LI      BEAUTIFUL   SAVANNAH 553 

LIT      MISS    "jAX"    AND    SOME    FLORIDA    GOSSIP 572 

LIII      PASSIONATE    PALM    BEACH 579 

LIV      ASSORTED  AND   RESORTED  FLORIDA 595 

LV      A     DAY     IN     MONTGOMERY 603 

LVI      THE    CITY    OF    THE    CREOLE 619 

LVII      HISTORY,    THE   CREOLE,    AND    HIS    DUELS 629 

LVIII      FROM    ANTIQUES    TO    PIRATES 648 

LIX      ANTOINE'S    AND    MARDI    GRAS 663 

LX      FINALE 675 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING  PAGE 

Charleston  is  the  last  stronghold  of  a  unified  American  upper  class ;  the 
last  remaining  American  city  in  which  Madeira  and  Port  and  noblesse 
oblige  are  fully  and  widely  understood,  and  are  employed  according  * 

to  the  best  traditions Frontispiece 

"Railroad  tickets!"  said  the  baggageman  with  exaggerated  patience     .         8 

Can  most  travellers,  I  wonder,  enjoy  as  I  do  a  solitary  walk,  by  night, 

through  the  mysterious  streets  of  a  strange  city? 17 

Coming  out  of  my  slumber  with  the  curious  and  unpleasant  sense  of 

being  stared  at,  I  found  his  eyes  fixed  upon  me 24 


Mount  Vernon  Place  is  the  centre  of  Baltimore 


32 


If  she  is  shopping  for  a  dinner  party,  she  may  order  the  costly  and  aris- 
tocratic diamond-back  terrapin,  sacred  in  Baltimore  as  is  the  Sacred 
Cod  in  Boston ^g 

Doughoregan  Manor — the  house  was  a  buff-colored  brick     ....       65 

I  began  to  realize  that  there  was  no  one  coming 80 

Harper's  Ferry  is  an  entrancing  old  town;  a  drowsy  place  piled  up  beau- 
tifully yet  carelessly  upon  terraced  roads  clinging  to  steep  hillsides     100 

"What's  the  matter  with  him?"  I  asked,  stopping 117 

When  I  came  down,  dressed  for  riding,  my  companion  was  making  a 
drawing;  the  four  young  ladies  were  with  him,  none  of  them  in  riding 
habits J24 

Claymont  Court  is  one  of  the  old  Washington  houses 132 

Chatham,  the  old  Fitzhugh  house,  now  the  residence  of  Mark  Sullivan     148 

Monticello  stands  on  a  lofty  hilltop,  with  vistas,  between  trees  of  neigh- 
boring valleys,  hills,  and  mountains 157 

Like  Venice,  the  University  of  Virginia  should  first  be  seen  by  moon- 
light    168 

One  party  was  stationed  on  the  top  of  an  old-time  mail-coach,  bearing 

the  significant  initials  "F.  F.  V." 180 

The  Piedmont  Hunt  Race  Meet i8g 

The  Southern  negro  is  the  world's  peasant  supreme 200 

xiii 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING  PAGE 

The  Country  Club  of  Virginia,  out  to  the  west  of  Richmond   .      .      .      .     21b 

Judge  Crutchfield 228 

Negro  women  squatting  upon  boxes  in  old  shadowy  lofts  stem  the  to- 
bacco leaves 237 

The  Judge:  "What  did  he  do,  Mandy?" 244 

Some  genuine  old-time  New  York  ferryboats  help  to  complete  the  illu- 
sion that  Norfolk  is  New  York 253 

"The  Southern  statesman  who  serves  his  section  best,  ser\'cs  his  country 

best" 280 

St.  Philip 'sis  the  more  beautiful  for  the  open  space  before  it     ....     300 

Opposite  St.  Philip's,  a  perfect  example  of  the  rude  architecture  of  an 

old  French  village 305 

In  the  doorway  and  gates  of  the  Smyth  house,  in  Legare  Street,  I  was 

struck  with  a  Venetian  suggestion 316 

Nor  is  the  Charleston  background  a  mere  arras  of  recollection     .      .      .     320 

Charleston  has  a  stronger,  deeper-rooted  city  entity  than  all  the  cities 

of  the  Middle  West  rolled  into  one 328 

The  interior  is  the  oldest  looking  thing  in  the  United  States — Goose 

Creek  Church 344 

A  reminder  of  the  Chicago  River — Atlanta 353 

With  the  whole  Metropolitan  Orchestra  playing  dance  music  all  night 

long 368 

The  office  buildings  are  city  office  buildings,  and  are  sufficiently  numer- 
ous to  look  very  much  at  home 376 

The  negro  roof-garden.  Odd  Fellows'  Building,  Atlanta 385 

I  was  never  so  conscious,  as  at  the  time  of  our  visit  to  the  Burge  Planta- 
tion, of  the  superlative  soft  sweetness  of  the  spring 396 

The  planters  cease  their  work 400 

Birmingham — the  thin  veil  of  smoke  from  far-ofT  iron  furnaces  softens 

the  city's  serrated  outlines 408 

Birmingham  practices  unremittingly  the  pestilential  habit  of  "cutting 

in"  at  dances 424 

Gigantic  movements  and  mutations,  Niagara-like  noises,  great  bursts 

of  flame  like  falling  fragments  from  the  sun 437 

A  shaggv',  unshaven,  rawboned  man,  gray-haired  and  collarless,  sat  near 

the  window 444 

Gaze  upon  the  character  called  Daniel  Voorhees  Pike! 456 

xiv 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING  PAGE 

The  houses  were  full  of  the  suggestion  of  an  easy-going  home  life  and  an 

informal  hospitality 465 

Her  hands  looked  very  white  and  smaU  against  his  dark  coat     .      .      .  480 

As  water  flows  down  the  hills  of  Vicksburg  to  the  river,  so  the  visitor's 
thoughts  flow  down  to  the  great  spectacular,  mischievous,  domi- 
nating stream 485 

Over  the  tenement  roofs  one  catches  sight  of  sundry  other  buildings  of 

a  more  self-respecting  character 492 

Vicksburg  negroes 497 

On  some  of  the  boats  negro  fish-markets  are  conducted 504 

The  old  Klein  house 512 

Citizens  go  at  midday  to  the  square 520 

Hanging  in  the  air  above  the  middle  of  the  stream 536 

These  small  parks  give  Savannah  the  quality  which  diflferentiates  it 

from  all  other  American  cities 556 

The  Thomas  house,  in  Franklin  Square 561 

You  will  see  them  having  tea,  and  dancing  under  the  palm  fronds  of 

the  cocoanut  grove c^g 

Cocktail  hour  at  The  Breakers 581 

Nowhere  is  the  sand  more  like  a  deep  warm  dust  of  yellow  gold  .      .      .  588 

The  couples  on  the  platform  were  "  ragging  " 600 

Harness  held  together  by  that  especial  Providence  which  watches  over 

negro  mending 512 

It  was  a  very  jolly  fair 616 

The  mysterious  old  Absinthe  House,  founded  1799 620 

St.  Anthony's  Garden 632 

Courtyard  of  the  old  Orleans  Hotel 641 

The  little  lady  who  sits  behind  the  desk 656 

The  lights  are  always  lowered  at  Antoine's  when  the  spectacular  Cafe 

Boulot  Diabolique  is  served 664 

Passing  between  the  brilliantly  illuminated  buildings,  the  Mardi  Gras  * 
parades  are  glorious  sights  for  children  from  eight  to  eighty  years  of 

age 672 


THE  BORDERLAND 


O  magnet-South  !     O   glistening,   perfumed   South  ! 
O  quick   mettle,   ricli   hlood,   impulse   and   love !  good  and  evil ! 
O  all  dear  to  me ! 

Walt  Whitman. 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

CHAPTER  I 
ON  JOURNEYS  THROUGH  THE  STATES 

On  journeys  through  the  States  we  start, 

.  .  .  We  willing  learners  of  all,  teachers  of  all,  lovers  of  all. 

We  dwell  a  while  in  every  city  and  town  .  .  . 

— Walt  Whitman. 

HAD  my  companion  and  I  never  crossed  the  con- 
tinent together,  had  we  never  gone  "abroad  at 
home,"  I  might  have  curbed  my  impatience  at 
the  beginning  of  our  second  voyage.  But  from  the 
time  we  returned  from  our  first  journey,  after  hav- 
ing spent  some  months  in  trying,  as  some  one  put  it, 
to  "discover  America,"  I  felt  the  gnawings  of  excited 
appetite.  The  vast  sweep  of  the  country  continually 
suggested  to  me  some  great  delectable  repast:  a  ban- 
quet spread  for  a  hundred  million  guests;  and  having 
discovered  myself  unable,  in  the  time  first  allotted,  to  de- 
vour more  than  part  of  it — a  strip  across  the  table,  as 
it  were,  stretching  from  New  York  on  one  side  to  San 
Francisco  on  the  other — I  have  hungered  impatiently 
for  more.  Indeed,  to  be  quite  honest,  I  should  like  to 
try  to  eat  it  all. 

3i 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Months  before  our  actual  departure  for  the  South 
the  day  for  leaving  was  appointed ;  days  before  we  fixed 
upon  our  train ;  hours  before  I  bought  my  ticket.  And 
then,  when  my  trunks  had  left  the  house,  when  my  taxi- 
cab  was  ordered  and  my  faithful  battered  suitcase 
stood  packed  to  bulging  in  the  hall,  my  companion,  the 
Illustrator,  telephoned  to  say  that  certain  drawings  he 
must  finish  before  leaving  were  not  done,  that  he  would 
be  unable  to  go  with  me  that  afternoon,  as  planned,  but 
must  wait  until  the  midnight  train. 

Had  the  first  leap  been  a  long  one  I  should  have  waited 
for  him,  but  the  distance  from  New  York  to  the  other 
side  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  Line  is  short,  and  I  knew 
that  he  would  join  me  on  the  threshold  of  the  South  next 
morning.  Therefore  I  told  him  I  would  leave  that  after- 
noon as  originally  proposed,  and  gave  him,  in  excuse, 
every  reason  I  could  think  of,  save  the  real  one :  namely, 
my  impatience.  I  told  him  that  I  washed  to  make  the 
initial  trip  by  day  to  avoid  the  discomforts  of  the  sleep- 
ing car,  that  I  had  engaged  hotel  accommodations  for  the 
night  by  w'ire,  that  friends  were  coming  down  to  see  me 
off. 

Nor  were  these  arguments  without  truth.  I  be- 
lieve in  telling  the  truth.  The  truth  is  good  enough  for 
any  one  at  any  time — except,  perhaps,  when  there  is  a 
point  to  be  carried,  and  even  then  some  vestige  of  it 
should,  if  convenient,  be  preserved.  Thus,  for  example, 
it  is  quite  true  that  I  prefer  the  conversation  of  my  fel- 
low travelers,  dull  though  it  may  be,  to  the  stertorous 

4 


ON  JOURNEYS  THROUGH  THE  STATES 

sounds  they  make  by  night;  so,  too,  if  I  had  not  tele- 
graphed for  rooms,  it  was  merely  because  I  had  for- 
gotten to — and  that  I  remedied  immediately ;  while  as  to 
the  statement  that  friends  were  to  see  me  off,  that  was 
absolutely  and  literally  accurate.  Friends  had,  indeed, 
signified  their  purpose  to  meet  me  at  the  station  for  last 
farewells,  and  had,  furthermore,  remarked  upon  the  very 
slight  show  of  enthusiasm  with  which  I  heard  the  news. 

The  fact  is,  I  do  not  like  to  be  seen  off.  Least  of  all, 
do  I  like  to  be  seen  off  by  those  w^ho  are  dear  to  me. 
If  the  thing  must  be  done,  I  prefer  it  to  be  done  by 
strangers — committees  from  chambers  of  commerce  and 
the  like,  who  have  no  interest  in  me  save  the  hope  that  I 
will  live  to  write  agreeably  of  their  city — of  the  civic 
center,  the  fertilizer  works,  and  the  charming  new  abat- 
toir. Seeing  me  off  for  the  most  practical  of  reasons, 
such  gentlemen  are  invariably  efficient.  They  provide 
an  equipage,  and  there  have  even  been  times  when,  in 
the  final  hurried  moments,  they  have  helped  me  to  jam 
the  last  things  into  my  trunks  and  bags.  One  of  them 
politely  takes  my  suitcase,  another  kindly  checks  my 
baggage,  and  all  in  order  that  a  third,  who  is  usually  the 
secretary  of  the  chamber  of  commerce,  may  regale  me 
with  inspiring  statistics  concerning  the  population  of 
"our  city,"  the  seating  capacity  of  the  auditorium,  the 
number  of  banks,  the  amount  of  their  clearings,  and  the 
quantity  of  belt  buckles  annually  manufactured.  When 
the  train  is  ready  we  exchange  polite  expressions  of  re- 
gret at  parting:  expressions  reminiscent  of  those  little 

5 


AMERICAN  ADVEXTURES 

speeches  which  the  King  of  England  and  the  Emperor 
of  Germany  used  to  make  at  parting  in  the  old  days  be- 
fore they  found  each  other  out  and  began  dropping 
high  explosives  on  each  other's  roofs. 

Such  a  committee,  feeling  no  emotion  (except  perhaps 
relief)  at  seeing  me  depart,  may  be  useful.  Not  so  with 
friends  and  loved  ones.  Useful  as  they  may  be  in  the 
great  crises  of  life,  they  are  but  disturbing  elements  in 
the  small  ones.  Those  who  would  die  for  us  seldom 
check  our  trunks. 

By  this  I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  either  of  the  two 
delightful  creatures  who  came  to  the  Pennsylvania 
Terminal  to  bid  me  good-by  would  die  for  me.  That 
one  has  lived  for  me  and  that  both  attempt  to  regulate 
my  conduct  is  more  than  enough.  Hardly  had  I  alighted 
from  my  taxicab,  hardly  had  the  redcap  seized  my  suit- 
case, when,  with  sweet  smiles  and  a  twinkling  of  daintily 
shod  feet,  they  came.  Fancy  their  having  arrived  ahead 
of  me!  Fancy  their  having  come  like  a  pair  of  angels 
through  the  rain  to  see  me  off !  Enough  to  turn  a  man's 
head !  It  did  turn  mine ;  and  I  noticed  that,  as  they  ap- 
proached, the  heads  of  other  men  were  turning  too. 

Flattered  to  befuddlement,  I  greeted  them  and  started 
with  them  automatically  in  the  direction  of  the  con- 
course, forgetting  entirely  the  driver  of  my  taxicab,  who, 
however,  took  in  the  situation  and  set  up  a  great  shout — 
whereat  I  returned  hastily  and  overpaid  him. 

This  accomplished,  I  rejoined  my  companions  and, 
with  a  radiant  dark-haired  girl  at  one  elbow  and  a  blonde, 

6 


ON  JOURNEYS  THROUGH  THE  STATES 

equally  delectable,  at  the  other,  moved  across  the  con- 
course. 

How  gay  they  were  as  we  strolled  along !  How  amus- 
ing were  their  prophecies  of  adventures  destined  to  be- 
fall me  in  the  South.  Small  wonder  that  I  took  no 
thought  of  whither  I  was  going. 

Presently,  having  reached  the  wall  at  the  other  side 
of  the  great  vaulted  chamber,  we  stopped. 

"Which  train,  boss  ?"  asked  the  porter  who  had  meekly 
followed. 

Train?  I  had  forgotten  about  trains.  The  mention 
of  the  subject  distracted  my  attention  for  the  moment 
from  the  Loreleieii,  stirred  my  drugged  sense  of  duty, 
and  reminded  me  that  I  had  trunks  to  check. 

My  suggestion  that  I  leave  them  briefly  for  this  pur- 
pose was  lightly  brushed  aside. 

"Oh,  no !"  they  cried.     "We  shall  go  with  you." 

I  gave  in  at  once — one  always  does  with  them — and  in- 
quired of  the  porter  the  location  of  the  baggage  room. 
He  looked  somewhat  fatigued  as  he  replied : 

"It 's  away  back  there  where  we  come  from,  boss." 

It  was  a  long  walk;  in  a  garden,  with  no  train  to 
catch,  it  would  have  been  delightful. 

"Got  your  tickets?"  suggested  the  porter  as  we  passed 
the  row  of  grilled  windows.  He  had  evidently  con- 
cluded that  I  was  irresponsible. 

As  I  had  them,  we  continued  on  our  way,  and  pres- 
ently achieved  the  baggage  room,  where  they  stood  talk- 
ing and  laughing,  telling  me  of  the  morning's  shopping 

7 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

expedition — hat-hunting,  they  called  it — in  the  rain.  I 
fancy  that  we  might  have  been  there  yet  had  not  a  bag- 
gageman, perhaps  divining  that  1  had  become  a  little  bit 
distrait  and  that  I  had  business  to  transact,  rapped 
smartly  on  the  iron  counter  with  his  punch  and  de- 
manded : 

"Baggage  checked?" 

Turning,  not  without  reluctance,  from  a  pair  of  violet 
eyes  and  a  pair  of  the  most  mysterious  gray,  I  began 
to  fumble  in  my  pockets  for  the  claim  checks. 

"How  long  shall  you  stay  in  Baltimore?"  asked  the 
girl  with  the  gray  eyes. 

"Yes,  indeed!"  I  answered,  still  searching  for  the 
checks. 

"That  does  n't  make  sense,"  remarked  the  blue-eyed 
girl  as  I  found  the  checks  and  handed  them  to  the  bag- 
gageman. "She  asked  how  long  you  'd  stay  in  Balti- 
more, and  you  said:     'Yes,  indeed.'  " 

"About  a  week  I  meant  to  say." 

"Oh,  I  don't  believe  a  week  will  be  enough,"  said  Gray- 
eyes. 

"We  can't  stay  longer,"  I  declared.  "We  must  keep 
pushing  on.  There  are  so  many  places  in  the  South  to 
see." 

"My  sister  has  just  been  there,  and  she — " 

"Where  to?"  demanded  the  insistent  baggageman. 

"Why,  Baltimore,  of  course,"  I  said.  Had  he  paid 
attention  to  our  conversation  he  might  have  known. 

8 


ON  JOURNEYS  THROUGH  THE  STATES 

"You  were  saying,"  reminded  Violet-eyes,  "that  your 

sister — ?" 

"She  just  came  home  from  there,  and  says  that — " 

"Railroad  ticket !"  said  the  baggageman  with  exagger- 
ated patience. 

I  began  again  to  feel  in  various  pockets. 

"She  says,"  continued  Gray-eyes,  "that  she  never  met 
more  charming  people  or  had  better  things  to  eat.  She 
loves  the  southern  accent  too." 

I  don't  know  how  the  tickets  got  into  my  upper  right 
vest  pocket;  I  never  carry  tickets  there;  but  that  is 
where  I  found  them. 

"Do  you  like  it?"  asked  the  other  girl  of  me. 

"Like  what?" 

"Why,  the  southern  accent." 

"Any  valuation?"  the  baggageman  demanded. 

"Yes,"  I  answered  them  both  at  once. 

"Oh,  you  dof"  cried  Violet-eyes,  incredulously. 

"Why,  yes ;  I  think—" 

"Put  down  the  amount  and  sign  here,"  the  baggage- 
man directed,  pushing  a  sHp  toward  me  and  placing  a 
pencil  in  my  hand. 

I  obeyed.  The  baggageman  took  the  slip  and  went  off 
to  a  little  desk.  I  judged  that  he  had  finished  with  me 
for  the  moment. 

"But  don't  you  think,"  my  fair  inquisitor  continued, 
"that  the  southern  girls  pile  on  the  accent  awfully,  be- 
cause they  know  it  pleases  men?" 

9 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

"Perhaps,"  1  said.  "But  then,  what  better  reason 
could  they  have  for  doing  so?" 

"Listen  to  that!"  she  cried  to  her  companion.  "Did 
you  ever  hear  such  egotism?" 

"He  's  nothing  Ijut  a  man,"  said  Gray-eyes  scornfully. 
"I  would  n't  be  a  man  for — " 

"A  dollar  and  eighty-five  cents,"  declared  the  baggage- 
man. 

I  paid  him. 

"I  wouldn't  be  a  man  for  anything!"  my  fair  friend 
finished  as  we  started  to  move  off. 

"I  would  n't  have  you  one,"  I  told  her,  opening  the 
concourse  door. 

"Hay!"  shouted  the  baggageman.  "Here's  your 
ticket  and  your  checks !" 

I  returned,  took  them,  and  put  them  in  my  pocket. 
Again  we  proceeded  upon  our  w^ay.  I  was  glad  to  leave 
the  baggageman. 

This  time  the  porter  meant  to  take  no  chances. 

"What  train,  boss?"  he  asked. 

"The  Congressional  Limited." 

"You  got  jus'  four  minutes." 

"Goodness !"  cried  Gray-eyes. 

"I  thought,"  said  Violet-eyes  as  we  accelerated  our 
pace,  "that  you  prided  yourself  on  always  having  time 
to  spare?" 

"Usually  I  do,"  I  answered,  "but  in  this  case — " 

"What  car?"  the  porter  interrupted  tactfully. 

Again  I  felt  for  my  tickets.     This  time  they  were  in 

10 


ON  JOURNEYS  THROUGH  THE  STATES 

my  change  pocket.  I  can't  imagine  how  I  came  to  put 
them  there. 

"But  in  this  case — what?"  The  violet  eyes  looked 
threatening  as  their  owner  put  the  question. 

''Seat  seven,  car  three,"  I  told  the  porter  firmly  as  we 
approached  the  gate.  Then,  turning  to  my  dangerous 
and  lovely  cross-examiner:  "In  this  case  I  am  unfor- 
tunate, for  there  is  barely  time  to  say  good-by." 

There  are  several  reasons  why  I  don't  believe  in  rail- 
way station  kisses.  Kisses  given  in  public  are  at  best 
but  skimpy  little  things,  suggesting  the  swift  peck  of  a 
robin  at  a  peach,  whereas  it  is  truer  of  kissing  than  of 
many  other  forms  of  industry  that  what  is  worth  doing 
at  all  is  worth  doing  well.  Yet  I  knew  that  one  of  these 
enchantresses  expected  to  be  kissed,  and  that  the  other 
very  definitely  did  n't.     Therefore  I  kissed  them  both. 

Then  I  bolted  toward  the  gate. 

"Tickets !"  demanded  the  gateman,  stopping  me. 

At  last  I  found  them  in  the  Inside  pocket  of  my  over- 
coat. I  don't  know  how  they  got  there.  I  never  carry 
tickets  in  that  pocket. 

As  the  train  began  to  move  I  looked  at  my  watch  and, 
discovering  it  to  be  three  minutes  fast,  set  it  right. 
That  is  the  sort  of  train  the  Congressional  Limited  is. 
A  moment  later  we  were  roaring  through  the  black- 
ness of  the  Hudson  River  tunnel. 

There  is  something  fine  in  the  abruptness  of  the  es- 
cape from  New  York  City  by  the  Pennsylvania  Rail- 
road.    From  the  time  you  enter  the  station  you  are  as 

II 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

good  as  gone.  There  is  no  progress  between  the  city's 
tenements,  with  untidy  bedding  airing  in  some  windows 
and  fat  old  slatterns  leaning  out  from  others  to  survey 
the  sordidness  and  squalor  of  the  streets  below.  A  swift 
plunge  into  darkness,  some  thundering  moments,  and 
your  train  glides  out  upon  the  wide  wastes  of  the  New 
Jersey  meadows.  The  city  is  gone.  You  are  even  in 
another  State.  Far,  far  behind,  bathed  in  glimmering 
haze  which  gives  them  the  appearance  of  palaces  in  a 
mirage,  you  may  see  the  tops  of  New  York's  towering 
sky-scrapers,  dwarfed  yet  beautified  by  distance.  Out- 
side the  wide  car  window  the  advertising  sign-boards 
pass  to  the  rear  in  steady  parade,  shrieking  in  strong 
color  of  whiskies,  tobaccos,  pills,  chewing  gums,  cough 
drops,   flours,  hams,  hotels,  soaps,   socks,  and  shows. 


12 


CHAPTER  II 
A  BALTIMORE  EVENING 

I  felt  her  presence  by  its  spell  of  might, 

Stoop  o'er  me  from  above ; 
The  calm,  majestic  presence  of  the  night, 

As  of  the  one  I  love. 

— Longfellow. 

BEFORE  I  went  to  Baltimore  I  had  but  two 
definite  impressions  connected  with  the  place: 
the  first  was  of  a  tmmel,  filled  with  coal  gas, 
through  which  trains  pass  beneath  the  city;  the  second 
was  that  when  a  southbound  train  left  Baltimore  the 
time  had  come  to  think  of  cleaning  up,  preparatory  to 
reaching  Washington. 

Arriving  at  Baltimore  after  dark,  one  gathers  an  im- 
pression of  an  adequate  though  not  impressive  Union 
Station  from  which  one  emerges  to  a  district  of  good 
asphalted  streets,  the  main  ones  wide  and  well  lighted. 
The  Baltimore  street  lamps  are  large  and  very  brilliant 
single  globes,  mounted  upon  the  tops  of  substantial 
metal  columns.  I  do  not  remember  having  seen  lamps 
of  the  same  pattern  in  any  other  city.     It  is  a  good  pat-  j 

tern,  but  there  is  one  thing  about  it  which  is  not  goodi  ^    e^t;"^° 
at  all,  and  that  is  the  way  the  street  names  are  lettered) 
upon  the  sides  of  the  globes.     Though  the  lettering  is 

13 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

not  large,  it  is  large  enough  to  be  read  easily  in  the  day- 
time against  the  globe's  white  surface,  but  to  try  to 
read  it  at  night  is  like  trying  to  read  some  little  legend 
printed  upon  a  blinding  noon-day  sun.  I  noticed  this 
particularly  because  I  spent  my  first  evening  in  wan- 
dering alone  about  the  streets  of  Baltimore,  and  wished 
to  keep  track  of  my  route  in  order  that  I  might  the  more 
readily  find  my  way  back  to  the  hotel. 

Can  most  travelers,  I  wonder,  enjoy  as  I  do  a  soli- 
tary walk,  by  night,  through  the  mysterious  streets  of 
a  strange  city?  Do  they  feel  the  same  detached  yet 
keen  interest  in  unfamiliar  highways,  homes,  and  hu- 
man beings,  the  same  sense  of  being  a  wanderer  from 
another  world,  a  ''messenger  from  Mars,"  a  Ilarun-al- 
Rashid,  or,  if  not  one  of  these,  an  imaginative  adven- 
turer like  Tartarin?  Do  they  thrill  at  the  sight  of  an 
ill-lighted  street  leading  into  a  no-man's-land  of  menac- 
ing dark  shadows ;  at  the  promise  of  a  glowing  window 
puncturing  the  blackness  here  or  there ;  at  the  invitation 
of  some  open  doorway  behind  which  unilluminated 
blackness  hangs,  threatening  and  tempting?  Do  they 
rejoice  in  streets  the  names  of  which  they  have  not 
heard  before?  Do  they — as  I  do — delight  in  irregu- 
larity: in  the  curious  forms  of  roofs  and  spires  against 
the  sky;  in  streets  which  run  up  hill  or  down;  or  which, 
instead  of  being  straight,  have  jogs  in  them,  or  curves, 
or  interesting  intersections,  at  which  other  streets  dart 
off  from  them  obliquely,  as  though  in  a  great  hurry  to 
get  somewhere  ?     Do  they  love  to  emerge  from  a  street 

14 


A  BALTIMORE  EVENING 

which  is  narrow,  dim,  and  deserted,  upon  one  which  is 
wide,  bright,  and  crowded;  and  do  they  also  hke  to 
leave  a  brilliant  street  and  dive  into  the  darkness  of 
some  somber  byway?  Does  a  long  row  of  lights  lure 
them,  block  by  block,  toward  distances  unknown?  Arc 
they  tempted  by  the  unfamiliar  signs  on  passing  street 
cars  ?  Do  they  yearn  to  board  those  cars  and  be  trans- 
ported by  them  into  the  mystic  caverns  of  the  night? 
And  when  they  see  strangers  who  are  evidently  going 
somewhere  with  some  special  purpose,  do  they  wish  to 
follow;  to  find  out  where  these  beings  are  going,  and 
why?  Do  they  wish  to  trail  them,  let  the  trail  lead  to 
a  prize  fight,  to  a  church  sociable,  to  a  fire,  to  a  fashion- 
able ball,  or  to  the  ends  of  the  world  ? 

For  the  traveler  w^ho  does  not  know  such  sensations 
and  such  impulses  as  these — who  has  not  at  times  in- 
dulged in  the  joy  of  yielding  to  an  inclination  of  at  least 
mildly  fantastic  character — I  am  profoundly  sorry. 
The  blind  themselves  are  not  so  blind  as  those  who,  see- 
ing with  the  physical  eye,  lack  the  eye  of  imagination. 

Residence  streets  like  Chase  and  Biddle,  in  the  blocks 
near  where  they  cross  Charles  Street,  midway  on  its 
course  between  the  Union  Station  and  Mount  Vernon 
Place,  are  at  night,  even  more  than  by  day,  full  of  the 
suggestion  of  comfortable  and  settled  domesticity. 
Their  brick  houses,  standing  wall  to  wall  and  close  to 
the  sidewalk,  speak  of  honorable  age,  and,  in  some 
cases,  of  a  fine  and  ancient  dignity.  One  fancies 
that   in  many   of   these   houses   the   best   of   old  ma- 

15 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

hogany  may  be  found,  or,  if  not  that,  then  at  least  the 
fairly  old  and  quite  creditable  furniture  of  the  period 
of  the  sleigh-back  bed,  the  haircloth-covered  rosewood 
sofa,  and  the  tall,  narrow  mirror  between  the  two  front 
windows  of  the  drawing  room. 

Through  the  glass  panels  of  street  doors  and  beneath 
half-drawn  window  shades  the  early-evening  wayfarer 
may  perceive  a  feeble  glow  as  of  illuminating  gas  turned 
low;  but  by  ten  o'clock  these  lights  have  begun  to  dis- 
appear, indicating — or  so,  at  all  events,  I  chose  to  believe 
— that  certain  old  ladies  wearing  caps  and  black  silk 
gowns  with  old  lace  fichus  held  in  place  by  ancient 
cameos,  have  proceeded  slowly,  rustlingly,  upstairs  to 
bed,  accompanied  by  their  cats. 

At  Cathedral  Street,  a  block  or  two  from  Charles, 
Biddle  Street  performs  a  jog,  dashing  off  at  a  tangent 
from  its  former  course,  while  Chase  Street  not  only  jogs 
and  turns  at  the  corresponding  intersection,  but  does 
so  again,  where,  at  the  next  corner,  it  meets  at  once  with 
Park  Avenue  and  Berkeley  Street.  After  this  it  runs 
but  a  short  way  and  dies,  as  though  exhausted  by  its 
own  contortions. 

Here,  in  a  region  of  malformed  city  blocks — some  of 
them  pentagonal,  some  irregularly  quadrangular,  some 
wedge-shaped — Howard  Street  sets  forth  upon  its  way, 
running  first  southwest  as  far  as  Richmond  Street,  then 
turning  south  and  becoming,  by  degrees,  an  important 
thoroughfare. 

Somewhere  near  the  beginning  of  Howard  Street  my 

i6 


Can  most  travellers,  I  wonder,  enjoy  as  I  do  a  solitary  walk,  by  night,  through 
the  mysterious  streets  of  a  strange  city? 


A  BALTIMORE  EVENING 

attention  was  arrested  by  shadowy  forms  in  a  dark 
window:  furniture,  andirons,  chinaware,  and  weapons 
of  obsolete  design:  unmistakable  signs  of  a  shop  in 
which  antiquities  were  for  sale.  After  making  mental 
note  of  the  location  of  this  shop,  I  proceeded  on  my 
way,  keeping  a  sharp  lookout  for  other  like  establish- 
ments. Nor  was  I  to  be  disappointed.  These  birds  of 
a  feather  bear  out  the  truth  of  the  proverb  by  flocking 
together  in  Howard  Street,  as  window  displays,  faintly 
visible,  informed  me. 

Since  we  have  come  naturally  to  the  subject  of  an- 
tiques, let  us  pause  here,  under  a  convenient  lamp-post, 
and  discuss  the  matter  further. 

Baltimore — as  I  found  out  later — Is  probably  the 
headquarters  for  the  South  in  this  trade.  It  has  at  least 
one  dealer  of  Fifth  Avenue  rank,  located  on  Charles 
Street,  and  a  number  of  humbler  dealers  in  and  near 
Howard  Street.  Among  the  latter,  two  in  particular 
interested  me.  One  of  these — his  name  is  John  A. 
Williar — I  have  learned  to  trust.  Not  only  did  I  make 
some  purchases  of  him  while  I  was  in  Baltimore,  but 
I  have  even  gone  so  far,  since  leaving  there,  as  to  buy 
from  him  by  mail,  accepting  his  assurance  that  some 
article  which  I  have  not  seen  is,  nevertheless,  what  I 
want,  and  that  it  is  "worth  the  price." 

At  the  other  antique  shop  which  interested  me  I  made 
no  purchases.  The  stock  on  hand  was  very  large,  and 
if  those  who  exhibited  it  to  me  made  no  mistakes  in 
differentiating   between   genuine   antiques   and   copies, 

17 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

the  assortment  of  ancient  furniture  on  sale  in  that  es- 
tablishment, when  I  was  there,  would  rank  among  the 
great  collections  of  the  world. 

However,  human  judgment  is  not  infallible,  and 
antique  dealers  sometimes  make  mistakes,  offering,  so 
to  speak,  "new  lamps  for  old."  The  eyesight  of  some 
dealers  may  not  be  so  good  as  that  of  others;  or  per- 
haps one  dealer  does  not  know  so  well  as  another  the 
difference  between,  say,  an  old  English  Chippendale 
chair  and  a  New  York  reproduction ;  or  again,  perhaps, 
some  dealers  may  be  innocently  unaware  that  there  ex- 
ist, in  this  land  of  ours,  certain  large  establishments 
wherein  are  manufactured  most  extraordinary  modern 
copies  of  the  furniture  of  long  ago.  I  have  been  in 
one  of  these  manufactories,  and  have  there  seen  chairs 
of  Chippendale  and  Sheraton  design  which,  though 
fresh  from  the  workman's  hands,  looked  older  than 
the  originals  from  which  they  had  been  plagiarized; 
also  I  recall  a  Jacobean  refectory  table,  the  legs  of  which 
appeared  to  have  been  eaten  half  away  by  time,  but 
which  had,  in  reality,  been  "antiqued"  with  a  stiff 
wire  brush.  I  mention  this  because,  in  my  opinion,  an- 
tique dealers  have  a  right  to  know  that  such  factories 
exist. 

What  curious  differences  there  are  between  the  cus- 
toms of  one  trade  and  those  of  another.  Compare,  for 
instance,  the  dealer  in  old  furniture  with  the  dealer  in 
old  automobiles.  The  latter,  far  from  pronouncing  a 
machine  of  which  he  wishes  to  dispose  "a  genuine  an- 


A  BALTIMORE  EVENING 

tique,"  will  assure  you — and  not  always  with  a  strict 
regard  for  truth — that  it  is  "practically  as  good  as 
new."  Or  compare  the  seller  of  antiques  with  the  horse 
dealer.  Can  you  imagine  the  latter's  taking  you  up  to 
some  venerable  quadruped — let  alone  a  three-year-old — 
and  discoursing  upon  its  merits  in  some  such  manner  as 
the  following: 

"This  is  the  oldest  and  most  historic  horse  that  has 
ever  come  into  my  possession.  Just  look  at  it,  sir! 
The  farmer  of  whom  I  bought  it  assured  me  that  it 
was  brought  over  by  his  ancestors  in  the  Mayflower. 
The  place  where  I  found  it  was  used  as  Washington's 
headquarters  during  the  Revolutionary  War,  and  it  is 
known  that  Washington  himself  frecjuently  sat  on  this 
very  horse.  It  was  a  favorite  of  his.  For  he  was  a 
large  man  and  he  liked  a  big,  comfortable,  deep-seated 
horse,  well  braced  underneath,  and  having  strong  arms, 
so  that  he  could  tilt  it  back  comfortably  against  the  wall, 
with  its  front  legs  off  the  floor,  and — " 

But  no!  That  won't  do.  It  appears  I  have  gotten 
mixed.  However,  you  know  what  I  meant  to  indicate. 
I  merely  meant  to  show  that  a  horse  dealer  would  n't 
talk  about  a  horse  as  an  antique  dealer  would  talk  about 
a  chair.  Even  if  the  horse  was  once  actually  ridden  by 
the  Father  of  his  Country,  the  dealer  won't  stress  the 
point.  You  can't  get  him  to  admit  that  a  horse  has 
reached  years  of  discretion,  let  alone  that  it  is  one  hun- 
dred and  forty-five  years  old,  or  so.  It  is  this  differ- 
ence between  the  horse  dealer  and  the  dealer  in  antiques 

19 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

which  keeps  us  in  the  dark  to-day  as  to  exactly  which 
horses  Washington  rode  and  which  he  did  n't  ride ;  al- 
though we  know  every  chair  he  ever  sat  in,  and  every 
bed  he  ever  slept  in,  and  every  house  he  ever  stopped 
in,  and  how  he  is  said  to  have  caught  his  death  of  cold. 

Having  thus  wandered  afield,  let  me  now  resume  my 
nocturnal  walk. 

Proceeding  down  Howard  Street  to  Franklin,  I 
judged  by  the  signs  I  saw  about  me — the  conglomerate 
assortment  of  theaters,  hotels,  rathskellers,  bars,  and 
brilliantly  lighted  drug  stores — that  here  was  the  center 
of  the  city's  nighttime  life. 

Not  far  from  this  corner  is  the  Academy,  a  very 
spacious  and  somewhat  ancient  theater,  and  although 
the  hour  was  late,  into  the  Academy  I  went  with  a  ticket 
for  standing  room. 

Arriving  during  an  intermission,  I  had  a  good  view 
of  the  auditorium.  It  is  reminiscent,  in  its  interior 
"decoration,"  of  the  recently  torn-down  Wallack's  Thea- 
ter in  New  York.  The  balcony  is  supported,  after  the 
old  fashion,  by  posts,  and  there  are  boxes  the  tops  of 
which  are  draped  with  tasseled  curtains.  It  is  the  kind 
of  theater  which  suggests  traditions,  dust,  and  the  possi- 
bility of  fire  and  panic. 

After  looking  about  me  for  a  time,  I  drew  from  my 
pocket  a  pamphlet  which  I  had  picked  up  in  the  hotel, 
and  began  to  gather  information  about  the  "Monumen- 
tal Citv,"  as  Baltimore  sometimes  calls  itself — thereby 
misusing  the  word,  since  "monumental"  means,  in  one 

20 


A  BALTIMORE  EVENING 

sense,  "enduring,"  and  in  another  "pertaining  to  or 
serving  as  a  monument":  neither  of  which  ideas  it  is 
intended,  in  this  instance,  to  convey.  What  Baltimore 
intends  to  indicate  is,  not  that  it  pertains  to  monuments, 
but  that  monuments  pertain  to  it:  that  it  is  a  city  in 
which  many  monuments  have  been  erected — as  is  in- 
deed the  pleasing  fact.  My  pamphlet  informed  me  that 
the  first  monument  to  Columbus  and  the  first  to  George 
Washington  were  here  put  up,  and  that  among  the  city's 
other  monuments  w^as  one  to  Francis  Scott  Key.  I  had 
quite  forgotten  that  it  was  at  Baltimore  that  Key  wrote 
the  words  of  "The  Star-Spangled  Banner,"  and,  as 
others  may  have  done  the  same,  it  may  be  well  here  to 
recall  the  details. 

In  1814,  after  the  British  had  burned  a  number  of 
Government  buildings  in  W^ashington,  including  "the 
President's  palace"  (as  one  of  their  officers  expressed 
it),  they  moved  on  Baltimore,  making  an  attack  by  land 
at  North  Point  and  a  naval  attack  at  Fort  McHenry  on 
Whetstone  Point  in  the  estuary  of  the  Patapsco  River — 
here  practically  an  arm  of  Chesapeake  Bay.  Both  at- 
tacks were  repulsed.  Having  gone  on  the  United  States 
cartel  ship  Mind  en  (used  by  the  government  in  negoti- 
ating exchanges  of  prisoners)  to  intercede  for  his 
friend,  Dr.  W^illiam  Beanes,  of  Upper  Marlborough, 
Maryland,  who  was  held  captive  on  a  British  vessel,  Key 
witnessed  the  bombardment  of  Fort  McHenry  from  the 
deck  of  the  Mindcn,  and  when  he  perceived  "by  the 
dawn's  early  light"  that  the  flag  still  flew  over  the  fort, 

21 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

he  was  moved  to  write  his  famous  poem.  Later  it  was 
printed  and  set  to  music ;  it  was  first  sung  in  a  restaurant 
near  the  old  HolHday  Street  Theater,  but  neither  the 
restaurant  nor  the  theater  exists  to-day.  It  is  some- 
times stated  that  Key  was  himself  a  prisoner,  during 
the  bombardment,  on  a  British  warship.  That  is  a  mis- 
take. 

By  a  curious  coincidence,  only  a  few  minutes  after 
my  pamphlet  had  reminded  me  of  the  origin  of  "The 
Star-Spangied  Banner"  here  in  Baltimore,  I  heard  the 
air  played  under  circumstances  very  different  from  any 
which  could  have  been  anticipated  l)y  the  author  of  the 
poem,  or  the  composer  who  set  it  to  music. 

The  entertainment  at  the  Academy  that  night  was 
supplied  by  an  elaborate  "show"  of  the  burlesque  variety 
known  as  'The  Follies,"  and  it  so  happened  that  in  the 
course  of  this  hodgepodge  of  color,  comedy,  scenery, 
song,  and  female  anatomy,  there  was  presented  a  "num- 
ber" in  which  actors,  garbed  and  frescoed  with  intent 
to  resemble  rulers  of  various  lands,  marched  successively 
to  the  front  of  the  stage,  preceded  in  each  instance  by  a 
small  but  carefully  selected  guard  wearing  the  full-dress- 
uniform  of  Broadway  Amazons.  This  uniform  con- 
sists principally  of  tights  and  high-heeled  slippers,  the 
diff'erent  nations  being  indicated,  usually,  by  means  of 
color  combinations  and  various  types  of  soldiers'  hats. 
No  arms  are  presented  save  those  provided  by  nature. 

The  King  of  Italy,  the  Emperor  of  Austria,  the  Czar, 
the   Mikado,   the   British   Alonarch,   the   President   of 


A  BALTIMORE  EVENING 

France,  the  King  of  the  Belgians,  the  Kaiser  (for  the 
United  States  had  not  then  entered  the  war),  and,  I 
think,  some  others,  put  in  an  appearance,  each  accom- 
panied by  his  Paphian  escort,  his  standard,  and  the  ap- 
propriate national  air.  Apprehending  that  this  sym- 
bolic travesty  must,  almost  inevitably,  end  in  a  grand 
orgy  of  Yankee-Doodleism,  I  was  impelled  to  flee  the 
place  before  the  thing  should  happen.  Yet  a  horrid 
fascination  held  me  there  to  watch  the  working  up  of 
''patriotic"  sentiment  by  the  old,  cheap,  stage  tricks. 

Presently,  of  course,  the  supreme  moment  came. 
When  all  the  potentates  had  taken  their  positions,  right 
and  left,  wdth  their  silk-limbed  soldiery  in  double  ranks 
behind  them,  there  came  into  view  upstage  a  squad  of 
little  white-clad  female  naval  officers,  each,  according  to 
my  recollection,  carrying  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  As 
these  marched  forward  and  deployed  as  skirmishers  be- 
fore the  footlights,  the  orchestra  struck  up  "The  Star- 
Spangled  Banner,"  fortissimo,  and  with  a  liberal  sound- 
ing of  the  brasses.  Upon  this  appeared  at  the  back  a 
counterfeit  President  of  the  United  States,  guarded  on 
either  side  by  a  female  militia — or  were  they  perhaps 
secret-service  agents? — in  striking  uniforms  consisting 
of  pink  fleshings  partially  draped  with  thin  black  lace. 

As  this  incongruous  parade  proceeded  to  the  foot- 
lights, American  flags  came  into  evidence,  and,  though 
I  forget  whether  or  not  Columbia  appeared,  I  recollect 
that  a  beautiful  young  woman,  habited  in  what  ap- 
peared to  be  a  light  pink  union  suit  of  unexceptionable 

23 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

cut  and  material,  appeared  above  the  head  of  the  pseudo- 
chief  executive,  suspended  at  the  end  of  a  wire.  Never 
having  heard  that  it  was  White  House  etiquette  to  hang 
young  ladies  on  wires  above  the  presidential  head,  1 
consulted  my  program  and  thereby  learned  that  this 
young  lady  represented  that  species  of  poultry  so  pop- 
ular always  with  the  late  Secretary  of  State,  Air.  Bryan, 
and  so  popular  also  at  one  time  with  the  President  him- 
self:  namely,  the  Dove  of  Peace. 

The  applause  w^as  thunderous.  At  the  sound  of  "The 
Star-Spangled  Banner"  a  few  members  of  the  audience 
arose  to  their  feet ;  others  soon  followed — some  of  them 
apparently  with  reluctance — until  at  last  the  entire  house 
had  risen.  Meanwhile  the  members  of  the  company 
lined  up  before  the  footlights :  the  mock  president  smirk- 
ing at  the  center,  the  half-clad  girls  posing,  the  pink 
young  lady  dangling  above,  the  band  blaring,  the  Stars 
and  Stripes  awave.  It  w^as  a  scene,  in  all,  about  as  con- 
ducive to  genuine  or  creditable  national  pride  as  would 
l)e  the  scene  of  a  debauch  in  some  fabulous  harem. 

The  difiference  between  stupidity  and  satire  lies,  not 
infrequently,  in  the  intent  with  which  a  thing  is  done. 
Presented  without  essential  change  upon  the  stage  of  a 
music  hall  in  some  foreign  land,  the  scene  just  described 
would,  at  that  time,  when  we  w^ere  playing  a  timid  part 
amongst  the  nations,  have  been  accepted,  not  as  a  glori- 
fication of  the  United  States,  but  as  having  a  precisely 
opposite  significance.  It  would  have  been  taken  for 
burlesque;  burlesque  upon  our  country,  our  President, 

24 


so 

a- 


P 


o 


A  BALTIMORE  EVENING 

our  national  spirit,  our  peace  policy,  our  army,  and  per- 
haps also  upon  our  women — and  insulting  burlesque  at 
that. 

Some  years  since,  it  was  found  necessary  to  pass  a  law 
prohibiting  the  use  of  the  flag  for  advertising  purposes. 
This  law  should  be  amended  to  protect  it  also  from 
the  even  more  sordid  and  vulgarizing  associations  to 
which  it  is  not  infrequently  submitted  on  the  American 
musical-comedy  stage. 

In  the  morning,  before  I  was  awake,  my  companion 
arrived  at  the  hotel,  and,  going  to  his  room,  opened  the 
door  connecting  it  with  mine.  Coming  out  of  my  slum- 
ber with  that  curious  and  not  altogether  pleasant  sense 
of  being  stared  at,  I  found  his  eyes  fixed  upon  me,  and 
noticed  immediately  about  him  the  air  of  virtuous  su- 
periority which  is  assumed  by  all  who  have  risen  early, 
whether  they  have  done  so  by  choice  or  have  been  shaken 
awake. 

"Hello,"  I  said.     "Had  breakfast?" 

"No.  I  thought  we  could  breakfast  together  if  you 
felt  like  getting  up." 

Though  the  phraseology  o£  this  remark  was  unex- 
ceptionable, I  knew  what  it  meant.  What  it  really 
meant  was :  "Shame  on  you,  lying  there  so  lazy  after 
sunup!     Look  at  me,  all  dressed  and  ready  to  begin!" 

I  arose  at  once. 

For  all  that  I  don't  like  to  get  up  early,  it  recalled  old 
times,  and  was  very  pleasant,  to  be  away  with  him  again 

25 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

upon  our  travels;  to  be  in  a  strange  city  and  a  strange 
hotel,  preparing  to  set  forth  on  explorations.  For  he 
is  the  best,  the  most  charming,  the  most  observant  of 
companions,  and  also  one  of  the  most  patient. 

That  is  one  of  his  greatest  qualities — his  patience. 
Throughout  our  other  trip  he  always  kept  on  being  pa- 
tient with  me,  no  matter  what  I  did.  Many  a  time 
instead  of  pushing  me  down  an  elevator  shaft,  drown- 
ing me  in  my  bath,  or  coming  in  at  night  and  smother- 
ing me  with  a  pillow,  he  has  merely  sighed,  dropped 
into  a  chair,  and  sat  there  shaking  his  head  and  staring 
at  me  with  a  melancholy,  ruminative,  hopeless  expres- 
sion— such  an  expression  as  may  come  into  the  face  of 
a  dumb  man  when  he  looks  at  a  waiter  who  has  spilled 
an  oyster  cocktail  on  him. 

All  this  is  good  for  me.     It  has  a  chastening  effect. 

Therefore  in  a  spirit  happy  yet  not  exuberant,  eager 
yet  controlled,  hopeful  yet  a  little  bit  afraid,  I  dressed 
myself  hurriedly,  breakfasted  with  him  (eating  ham 
and  eggs  because  he  approves  of  ham  and  eggs),  and 
after  breakfast  set  out  in  his  society  to  obtain  what — 
despite  my  walk  of  the  night  before — I  felt  was  not 
alone  my  first  real  view  of  Baltimore,  but  my  first 
glimpse  over  the  threshold  of  the  South:  into  the  land 
of  aristocracy  and  hospitality,  of  mules  and  mammies, 
of  plantations,  porticos,  and  proud,  flirtatious  belles,  of 
colonels,  cotton,  chivalry,  and  colored  cooking. 


26 


CHAPTER  III 
WHERE  THE  CLIMATES  MEET 

Here,  where  the  climates  meet, 
That  each  may  make  the  other's  lack  complete — 

— Sidney  Lanier. 

BECAUSE  Baltimore  was  built,  like  Rome,  on 
seven  hills,  and  because  trains  run  under  it  in- 
stead of  through,  the  passing  traveler  sees  but 
little  of  the  city,  his  view  from  the  train  window  being 
restricted  first  to  a  suburban  district,  then  to  a  black 
tunnel,  then  to  a  glimpse  upward  from  the  railway 
cut,  in  which  the  station  stands.  These  facts,  I  think, 
combine  to  leave  upon  his  mind  an  impression  which, 
if  not  actually  unfavorable,  is  at  least  negative ;  for  cer- 
tainly he  has  obtained  no  just  idea  of  the  metropolis  of 
Maryland. 

Let  it  be  declared  at  the  outset,  then,  that  Balti- 
more is  not  in  any  sense  to  be  regarded  as  a  suburb 
of  Washington.  Indeed,  considering  the  two  merely  as 
cities  situated  side  by  side,  and  eliminating  the  highly 
specialized  features  of  Washington,  Baltimore  becomes, 
according  to  the  standards  by  which  American  cities 
are  usually  compared,  the  more  important  city  of  the 
two,  being  greater  both  in  population  and  in  commerce. 
In  this  aspect  Baltimore  may,  perhaps,  be  pictured  as  the 

27 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

commercial  half  of  Washington.  And  while  ^^'ash- 
ington,  as  capital  of  the  United  States,  has  certain  phys- 
ical and  cosmopolitan  advantages,  not  only  over  Balti- 
more, but  over  every  other  city  on  this  continent,  it  must 
not  be  forgotten  that,  upon  the  other  hand,  every  other 
city  has  one  vast  advantage  over  Washington,  namely, 
a  comparative  freedom  from  politicians.  To  be  sure, 
Congress  did  once  move  over  to  Baltimore  and  sit  there 
for  several  weeks,  but  that  was  in  1776,  when  the  British 
approached  the  Delaware  in  the  days  before  the  pork 
barrel  was  invented. 

As  a  city  Baltimore  has  marked  characteristics. 
Though  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  Line,  and  though 
sometimes  referred  to  as  the  "metropolis  of  the  South" 
(as  is  New  Orleans  also),  it  is  in  character  neither  a  city 
entirely  northern  nor  entirely  southern,  but  one  which 
partakes  of  the  qualities  of  both;  where,  in  the  words 
of  Sidney  Lanier,  "the  climates  meet,"  and  where  north- 
ern and  southern  thought  and  custom  meet,  as  well. 
This  has  long  been  the  case.  Thus,  although  slaves 
were  held  in  Baltimore  before  the  Civil  \\'ar,  a  strong 
abolitionist  society  was  formed  there  during  Washing- 
ton's first  Administration,  and  the  sentiment  of  the  city 
was  thereafter  divided  on  the  slavery  question.  Thus 
also,  W'hile  the  two  candidates  of  the  divided  Democratic 
party  who  ran  against  Lincoln  for  the  presidency  in 
i860  were  nominated  at  Baltimore,  Lincoln  himself  was 
nominated  there  by  the  Union-Republican  party  in  1864. 

Speaking  of  the  blending  of  North  and  South  in  Balti- 

28 


WHERE  THE  CLIMATES  MEET 

more,  you  will,  of  course,  remember  that  the  Sixth 
Massachusetts  Regiment  was  attacked  by  a  mob  as  it 
passed  through  the  city  on  the  way  to  the  Civil  War. 
The  regiment  arrived  in  Baltimore  at  the  old  President 
Street  Station,  which  was  then  the  main  station  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Railroad,  and  which,  now  used  as  a  freight 
station,  looks  like  an  old  war-time  woodcut  out  of 
Harper's  Weekly.  It  was  the  custom  in  those  days 
to  hitch  horses  to  passenger  coaches  which  were  going 
through  and  draw  them  across  town  to  the  Baltimore  & 
Ohio  Station;  but  when  it  was  attempted  thus  to  trans- 
port the  northern  troops  a  mob  gathered  and  blocked 
the  Pratt  Street  bridge  over  Jones's  Falls,  forcing  the 
soldiers  to  leave  the  cars  and  march  through  Pratt 
Street,  along  the  water  front,  where  they  were  attacked. 
It  is,  however,  a  noteworthy  fact  that  Mayor  Brown 
of  Baltimore  bravely  preceded  the  troops  and  attempted 
to  stop  the  rioting.  A  few  days  later  the  city  was  occu- 
pied by  northern  troops,  and  the  warship  Harriet  Lane 
anchored  at  a  point  off  Calvert  Street,  whence  her  guns 
commanded  the  business  part  of  town.  After  this 
there  was  no  more  serious  trouble.  Moreover,  it  will 
be  remembered  that  though  Maryland  was  represented 
by  regiments  in  both  armies,  the  State,  torn  as  it 
was  by  conflicting  feeling,  nevertheless  held  to  the 
Union. 

A  pretty  sequel  to  the  historic  attack  on  the  Sixth 
Massachusetts  occurred  when  the  same  regiment  passed 
through  Baltimore  in  i8q8,  on  its  way  to  the  Spanish 

29 


AMERICAN  ADVEXTURES 

War.  On  this  occasion  it  was  "attacked"  again  in  the 
streets  of  the  city,  but  the  missiles  thrown,  instead  of 
paving-stones  and  bricks,  were  flowers. 

Continuing  the  category  of  contrasts,  one  may  ob- 
serve that  while  the  general  appearance  of  Baltimore 
suggests  a  northern  city  rather  than  a  southern  one — 
Philadelphia,  for  instance,  rather  than  Richmond — Balti- 
more society  is  strongly  flavored  with  the  tradition  and 
the  soft  pronunciation  of  the  South;  particularly  of 
Virginia  and  the  "Eastern  Shore." 

So,  too,  the  city's  position  on  the  border  line  is  re- 
flected in  its  handling  of  the  negro.  Of  American  cities, 
Washington  has  the  largest  negro  population,  94,446, 
New  York  and  New  Orleans  follow  with  almost  as 
many,  and  Baltimore  comes  fourth  with  84,749,  accord- 
ing to  the  last  census.  New  York  has  one  negro  to 
every  fifty-one  whites,  Philadelphia  one  to  every  seven- 
teen w^hites,  Baltimore  one  to  every  six,  Washington  a 
negro  to  every  two  and  a  half  whites,  and  Richmond  not 
cjuite  tw^o  \vhites  to  every  negro.  But,  although  Balti- 
more follows  southern  practice  in  maintaining  separate 
schools  for  negro  children,  and  in  segregating  negro 
residences  to  certain  blocks,  she  follows  northern  prac- 
tice in  casting  a  considerable  negro  vote  at  elections,  and 
also  in  not  providing  separate  seats  for  negroes  in  her 
street  cars. 

Have  you  ever  noticed  how  cities  sometimes  seem 
to  have  their  own  especial  colors?  Paris  is  white  and 
green — even  more  so,  I  think,  than  W' ashington.     Chi- 

30 


WHERE  THE  CLIMATES  MEET 

cago  is  gray ;  so  is  London  usually,  though  I  have  seen  it 
butT  at  the  beginning  of  a  heavy  fog.  New  York  used 
to  be  a  brown  sandstone  city,  but  is  now  turning  to  one 
of  cream-colored  brick  and  tile;  Naples  is  brilliant  with 
pink  and  blue  and  green  and  white  and  yellow ;  while  as 
for  Baltimore,  her  old  houses  arid  her  new  are,  as  Baede- 
ker puts  it,  of  "cheerful  red  brick" — not  always,  of 
course,  but  often  enough  to  establish  the  color  of  red 
brick  as  the  city's  predominating  hue.  And  with  the 
red-brick  houses — particularly  the  older  ones — go  clean 
white  marble  steps,  on  the  bottom  one  of  which,  at  the 
side,  may  usually  be  found  an  old-fashioned  iron 
"scraper,"  doubtless  left  over  from  the  time  (not  very 
long  ago)  when  the  city  pavements  had  not  reached  their 
present  excellence. 

The  color  of  red  brick  is  not  confined  to  the  center  of 
the  city,  but  spreads  to  the  suburbs,  fashionable  and 
unfashionable.  At  one  margin  of  the  town  I  was  shown 
solid  blocks  of  pleasant  red-brick  houses  which,  I  was 
told,  were  occupied  by  workmen  and  their  families,  and 
were  to  be  had  at  a  rental  of  from  ten  to  twenty  dol- 
lars a  month.  For  though  Baltimore  has  a  lower  East 
Side  which,  like  the  lower  East  Side  of  New  York,  en- 
compasses the  Ghetto  and  Italian  quarter,  she  has  not 
tenements  in  the  New  York  sense ;  one  sees  no  tall,  cheap 
flat  houses  draped  with  fire  escapes  and  built  to  make 
herding  places  for  the  poor.  Many  of  the  houses  in 
this  section  are  instead  the  former  homes  of  fashion- 
ables who  have  moved  to  other  quarters  of  the  city — 

31 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

handsome  old  homesteads  with  here  and  there  a  lovely, 
though  battered,  doorway  sadly  reminiscent  of  an  earlier 
elegance.  So,  also,  red  brick  permeates  the  prosperous 
suburbs,  such  as  Roland  Park  and  Guilford,  where,  in  a 
sweetly  rolling  country  which  lends  itself  to  the  ar- 
rangement of  graceful  winding  roads  and  softly  con- 
toured plantings,  stand  quantities  of  pleasing  homes, 
lately  built,  many  of  them  colonial  houses  of  red  brick. 
Indeed,  it  struck  us  that  the  only  parts  of  Baltimore 
in  which  red  brick  was  not  the  dominant  note  were  the 
downtown  business  section  and  Mount  Vernon  Place. 

Mount  Vernon  Place  is  the  center  of  Baltimore. 
Everything  begins  there,  including  Baedeker,  who,  in 
his  little  red  book,  gives  it  the  asterisk  of  his  approval, 
says  that  it  "suggests  Paris  in  its  tasteful  monuments 
and  surrounding  buildings,"  and  recommends  the  view 
from  the  top  of  the  Washington  Monument. 

This  monument,  standing  upon  an  eminence  at  the 
point  where  Charles  and  Monument  Streets  would  cross 
each  other  were  not  their  courses  interrupted  by  the 
pleasing  parked  space  of  Mount  Vernon  Place,  is  a 
gray  stone  column,  surmounted  by  a  figure  of  Washing- 
ton— or,  rather,  .by  the  point  of  a  lightning  rod  under 
which  the  figure  stands.  Other  monuments  are  known 
as  this  monument  or  that,  1)ut  when  "the  monument" 
is  spoken  of,  the  Washington  Monument  is  inevitably 
meant.  This  is  quite  natural,  for  it  is  not  only  the  most 
simple  and  picturesque  old  monument  in  Baltimore,  but 
also  the  largest,  the  oldest,  and  the  most  conspicuous: 

32 


<3 


tti 


P^.V'T'^:-^--<^ 


^s 


^,.^ 


'^^^'^^jp)^ 


\     ^i> 


\. 


v.^' 

■'•y 


WHERE  THE  CLIMATES  MEET 

its  proud  head,  rising  high  in  air,  having  for  nearly 
a  century  dominated  the  city.  One  catches  ghmpses  of 
it  down  this  street  or  that,  or  sees  it  from  afar  over  the 
housetops ;  and  sometimes,  when  the  column  is  concealed 
from  view  by  intervening  buildings,  and  only  the  sur- 
mounting statue  shows  above  them,  one  is  struck  by  a 
sudden  apparition  of  the  Father  of  his  Country  strolling 
fantastically  upon  some  distant  roof. 

Though  it  may  be  true  that  Mount  Vernon  Place, 
with  its  symmetrical  parked  center  and  its  admirable 
bronzes  (several  of  them  by  Barye),  suggests  Paris, 
and  though  it  is  certainly  true  that  it  is  more  like  a 
Parisian  square  than  a  London  square,  nevertheless  it  is 
in  reality  an  American  square — perhaps  the  finest  of  its 
kind  in  the  United  States.  If  it  were  Parisian,  it  would 
have  more  trees  and  the  surrounding  buildings  would  be 
uniform  in  color  and  in  cornice  height.  It  is  perhaps 
as  much  like  Rittenhouse  Square  in  Philadelphia  as  any 
other,  and  that  resemblance  is  of  the  slightest,  for  Mount 
Vernon  Place  has  a  quality  altogether  its  own.  It 
has  no  skyscrapers  or  semi-skyscrapers  to  throw  it  out 
of  balance;  and  though  the  structures  which  surround 
it  are  of  white  stone,  brown  stone,  and  red  brick,  and  of 
anything  but  homogeneous  architecture,  nevertheless  a 
comparative  uniformity  of  height,  a  universal  solidity 
of  construction,  and  a  general  grace  about  them,  com- 
bine to  give  the  Place  an  air  of  equilibrium  and  dignity 
and  elegance. 

Including  the  Washington  Monument,  Baltimore  has 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

three  lofty  landmarks,  likely  to  be  particularly  noticed 
by  the  roving  visitor.  Of  the  remaining  two,  one  is  the 
old  brick  shot-tower  in  the  lower  part  of  town,  which 
legend  tells  us  was  put  up  without  the  use  of  scaffolding 
nearly  a  hundred  years  ago;  while  the  other,  a  more 
modern,  if  less  modest  structure,  proudly  surmounts  a 
large  commercial  building  and  is  itself  capped  by  the 
gigantic  effigy  of  a  bottle.  This  bottle  is  very  con- 
spicuous because  of  its  emplacement,  because  it  revolves, 
and  because  it  is  illuminated  at  night.  You  can  never 
get  away  from  it. 

One  evening  I  asked  a  man  what  the  l)ottle  meant  up 
there. 

*Tt  's  a  memorial  to  Emerson,"  he  told  me. 

"Are  they  so  fond  of  Emerson  down  here?" 

'T  don't  know  as  they  are  so  all-fired  fond  of  him," 
he  answered. 

''But  they  vutst  be  fond  of  him  to  put  up  such  a  big 
memorial.  A\  hy,  even  in  Boston,  where  he  was  born, 
they  have  no  such  memorial  as  that." 

"He  put  it  up  himself,"  said  the  man. 

That  struck  me  as  strange.  It  seemed  somehow  out 
of  character  with  the  great  philosopher.  Also,  I  could 
not  see  why,  if  he  did  wish  to  raise  a  memorial  to  him- 
self, he  had  elected  to  fashion  it  in  the  form  of  a  bottle 
and  put  it  on  top  of  an  office  building. 

"I  suppose  there  is  some  sort  of  symbolism  about  it?" 
I  suggested. 

"Now  you  got  it,"  approved  the  man. 

34 


WHERE  THE  CLIMATES  MEET 

I  gazed  at  the  tower  for  a  while  in  thought.  Then 
I  said: 

"Do  you  suppose  that  Emerson  meant  something  like 
this :  that  human  life  or,  indeed,  the  soul,  may  be  likened 
to  the  contents  of  a  bottle;  that  day  by  day  we  use  up 
some  portion  of  the  contents — call  it,  if  you  like,  the 
nectar  of  existence — until  the  fluid  of  life  runs  low,  and 
at  last  is  gone  entirely,  leaving  only  the  husk,  as  it  were 
— or,  to  make  the  metaphor  more  perfect,  the  shell,  or 
empty  bottle:  the  container  of  what  Emerson  himself 
called,  if  I  recollect  correctly,  'the  soul  that  maketh  all' 
— do  you  suppose  he  meant  to  teach  us  some  such  thing 
as  that?" 

The  man  looked  a  little  confused  by  this  deep  and 
beautiful  thought. 

"He  might  of  meant  that,"  he  said,  somewhat  dubi- 
ously. ''But  they  tell  me  Captain  Emerson  's  a  practical 
man,  and  I  reckon  what  he  mainly  meant  was  that  he 
made  his  money  out  of  this-here  Bromo  Seltzer,  and  he 
was  darn  glad  of  it,  so  he  thought  he  'd  put  him  up  a  big 
Bromo  Seltzer  bottle  as  a  kind  of  cross  between  a  monu- 
ment and  an  ad." 

If  the  bottle  tower  represents  certain  modern  con- 
cepts of  what  is  suitable  in  architecture,  it  is  never- 
theless pleasant  to  record  the  fact  that  many  honorable 
old  buildings — most  of  them  residences — survive  in 
Baltimore,  and  that,  because  of  their  survival,  the  city 
looks  older  than  New  York  and  fully  as  old  as  either 
Philadelphia  or  Boston.     But  in  this,  appearances  are 

35 


AMERICAN  ADVEXTLRiiS 

misleading,  for  New  York  and  Boston  were  a  century 
old,  and  I'hiladelphia  half  a  century,  when  JJaltimore 
was  first  laid  out  as  a  town.  Efforts  to  start  a  settle- 
ment near  the  city's  present  site  were,  it  is  true,  being 
made  before  William  Penn  and  his  Quakers  established 
Philadelphia,  but  a  letter  written  in  1687  by  Charles  Cal- 
vert, third  Baron  Baltimore,  explains  that:  "The  peo- 
ple there  [are]  not  affecting  to  build  nere  each  other  but 
soe  as  to  have  their  houses  nere  the  watters  for  con- 
veniencye  of  trade  and  their  lands  on  each  side  of  and 
behynde  their  houses,  by  which  it  hai)pens  that  in  most 
places  there  are  not  fifty  houses  in  the  space  of  thirty 
myles."  ' 

The  difficulty  experienced  by  the  Barons  Baltimore, 
Lords  Proprietary  of  Maryland,  in  building  up  communi- 
ties in  their  demesne  was  not  a  local  problem,  but  one 
which  confronted  those  interested  in  the  development 
of  the  entire  portion  of  this  continent  now  occupied  by 
the  Southern  States.  Generally  speaking,  towns  came 
into  being  more  slowly  in  the  South  than  in  the  North, 
and  it  seems  probable  that  one  of  the  principal  reasons 
for  this  may  be  found  in  the  fact  that  settlers  through- 
out the  South  lived  generally  at  peace  w'ith  the  Indians, 
whereas  the  northern  settlers  were  obliged  to  congre- 
gate in  towns  for  mutual  protection.  Thus,  in  colonial 
days,  while  the  many  cities  of  New  York  and  New  Eng- 
land were  coming  into  being,  the  South  was  develop- 
ing its  vast  and  isolated  plantations.     Farms  on  the  St. 

'  From  "Historic  Towns  of  the  Southern  States." 

36 


WHERE  THE  CLIMATES  MEET 

Lawrence  River  and  on  the  Detroit  River,  where  the 
French  were  setthng,  were  very  narrow  and  very  deep, 
the  idea  being  to  range  the  houses  close  together  on  the 
river  front ;  but  on  such  rivers  as  the  Potomac,  the  Rap- 
pahannock and  the  James,  no  element  of  early  fear  is  to 
be  traced  in  the  form  of  the  broad  baronial  plantations. 

Nevertheless,  when  Baltimore  began  at  last  to  grow, 
she  became  a  prodigy,  not  only  among  American  cities, 
but  among  the  cities  of  the  world.  Her  first  town  di- 
rectory was  published  in  1796,  and  she  began  the  next 
year  as  an  incorporated  city,  with  a  mayor,  a  population 
of  about  twenty  thousand,  and  a  curiously  assorted  early 
history  containing  such  odd  items  as  that  the  first  um- 
brella carried  in  the  United  States  was  brought  from 
India  and  unfurled  in  Baltimore  in  1772;  that  the  town 
had  for  some  time  possessed  such  other  useful  articles 
as  a  fire  engine,  a  brick  theater,  a  newspaper,  and 
policemen ;  that  the  streets  were  lighted  with  oil  lamps ; 
that  such  proud  signs  of  metropolitanism  as  riot  and  epi- 
demic were  not  unknown;  that  before  the  Revolution 
bachelors  were  taxed  for  the  benefit  of  his  Britannic 
Majesty;  and  that  at  fair  time  the  "lid  was  off,"  and  the 
citizen  or  visitor  who  wished  to  get  himself  arrested 
must  needs  be  diligent  indeed. 


37 


CHAPTER  IV 
TRIUMPHANT  DEFEAT 

There  are  some  defeats  more  triumphant  than  victories. 

— Montaigne. 

FOLLOWING  the  incorporation  of  the  city,  Balti- 
more grew  much  as  Chicago  was  destined  to 
grow  more  than  a  century  later ;  within  less  than 
thirty  years,  when  Chicago  was  a  tiny  village,  Balti- 
more had  become  the  third  city  in  the  United  States:  a 
city  of  wealthy  merchants  engaged  in  an  extensive  for- 
eign trade;  for  in  those  days  there  was  an  American 
merchant  marine,  and  the  swift,  rakish  Baltimore  clip- 
pers were  known  the  seven  seas  over. 

The  story  of  modern  Baltimore  is  entirely  unrelated 
to  the  city's  early  history.  It  consists  in  a  simple  but 
inspiring  record  of  regeneration  springing  from  dis- 
aster. It  is  the  story  of  Chicago,  of  San  Francisco,  of 
Galveston,  of  Dayton,  and  of  many  a  smaller  town:  a 
cataclysm,  a  few  days  of  despair,  a  return  of  courage, 
and  another  beginning. 

Imagine  yourself  being  tucked  into  bed  one  night  by 
your  valet  or  your  maid,  as  the  case  may  be,  calm  in  the 
feeling  that  all  was  secure:  that  your  business  was  re- 
turning a  handsome  income,  that  your  stocks  and  bonds 

38 


TRIUMPHANT  DEFEAT 

were  safe  in  the  strong  box,  that  the  prosperity  of  your 
descendants  was  assured.  Then  imagine  ruin  coming 
Hke  lightning  in  the  night.  In  the  morning  you  are 
poor.  Your  business,  your  investments,  your  very 
hopes,  are  gone.  Everything  is  wiped  out.  The  labor 
of  a  lifetime  must  be  begun  again. 

Such  an  experience  was  that  of  Baltimore  in  the  fire 
of  1904. 

On  the  sickening  morning  following  the  conflagration 
two  Baltimore  men,  friends  of  mine,  walked  down 
Charles  Street  to  a  point  as  near  the  ruined  region  as  it 
was  possible  to  go. 

"Well,"  said  one,  surveying  the  smoking  crater,  ''what 
do  you  think  of  it  ?" 

"Baltimore  is  gone,"  was  the  response.  "We  are  off 
the  map." 

How  many  citizens  of  Chicago,  of  San  Francisco,  of 
Galveston,  of  Dayton  have  known  the  anguish  of  that 
first  aftermath  of  hopelessness !  How  many  citizens  of 
Baltimore  knew  it  that  day!  And  yet  how  bravely 
and  with  what  magic  swiftness  have  these  cities  risen 
from  their  ruins!  Was  not  Rome  burned?  Was 
not  London  ?  And  is  it  not,  then,  time  for  men  to  learn 
from  the  history  of  other  men  and  other  cities  that  dis- 
aster does  not  spell  the  end,  but  is  oftentimes  another 
name  for  opportunity? 

Always,  after  disaster  to  a  city,  come  improvements, 
but  because  disaster  not  only  cleans  the  slate  but  simul- 
taneously stuns  the  mind,  a  portion  of  the  opportunity 

39 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

is  invariably  lost.  The  task  of  rebuilding,  of  widening 
a  few  streets,  looks  large  enough  to  him  who  stands 
amidst  destruction — and  there,  consequently,  improve- 
ment usually  stops.  That  is  why  the  downtown  boule- 
vard system  of  Chicago  has  yet  to  be  completed,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  it  might  with  little  difficulty  have  been 
completed  after  the  Chicago  fire  (although  it  is  only 
just  to  add  that  city  planning  was  almost  an  unknown 
art  in  America  at  that  time) ;  and  that  also  is  why  the 
hills  of  San  Francisco  are  not  terraced,  as  it  was  sug- 
gested they  should  be  after  the  fire,  but  remain  to-day 
inaccessible  to  frontal  attack  by  even  the  maddest  moun- 
tain goat  of  a  taxi  driver. 

These  matters  are  not  mentioned  in  the  way  of  criti- 
cism :  T  have  only  admiration  for  the  devastated  cities 
and  for  those  who  built  them  up  again.  I  call  attention 
to  lost  opportunities  with  something  like  reluctance, 
and  only  in  the  wish  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  our 
crippled  or  destroyed  cities  do  invariably  rise  again,  and 
that  if  the  next  American  city  to  sustain  disaster  shall 
but  have  this  simple  lesson  learned  in  advance,  it  may 
thereby  register  a  new  high  mark  in  municipal  intel- 
ligence and  a  new  record  among  the  rebuilt  cities,  by 
making  more  sweet  than  any  other  city  ever  made  them, 
the  uses  of  adversity. 

The  fire  of  1904  found  Baltimore  a  town  of  narrow 
highways,  old  buildings,  bad  pavements,  and  open  gut- 
ter drains.  The  streets  were  laid  in  what  is  known  as 
"southern  cobble,"  which  is  the  next  thing  to  no  pave- 

40 


TRIUMPHANT  DEFEAT 

ment  at  all,  being  made  of  irregular  stones,  large  and 
small,  laid  in  the  dirt  and  tamped  down.  For  bumps 
and  ruts  there  is  no  pavement  in  the  world  to  be  com- 
pared with  it.  There  were  no  city  sewers.  Outside  a 
few  affluent  neighborhoods,  the  citizens  of  which  clubbed 
together  to  build  private  sewers,  the  cesspool  was  in  gen- 
eral use,  while  domestic  drainage  emptied  into  the  road- 
side gutters.  These  were  made  passable,  at  crossings, 
by  stepping  stones,  about  the  bases  of  which  passed  in- 
teresting armadas  of  potato  peelings,  floating,  upon 
wash  days,  in  water  having  the  fine  Mediterranean  hue 
which  comes  from  diluted  blueing.  Everybody  seemed 
to  find  the  entire  system  adequate;  for,  it  was  argued, 
the  hilly  contours  of  the  city  caused  the  drainage  quickly 
to  be  carried  off,  while  as  for  typhoid  and  mosquitoes — 
well,  there  had  always  been  typhoid  and  mosquitoes,  just 
as  there  had  always  been  these  open  gutters.  It  was  all 
quite  good  enough. 

Then  the  fire. 

And  then  the  upbuilding  of  the  city — not  only  of  the 
acres  and  acres  comprising  the  burned  section,  in  which 
streets  were  widened  and  skyscrapers  arose  where  fire- 
traps  had  been — but  outside  the  fire  zone,  where  sewers 
were  put  down  and  pavements  laid.  Nor  was  the  change 
merely  physical.  With  the  old  buildings,  the  old  spirit 
of  laisses  faire  went  up  in  smoke,  and  in  the  embers  a 
municipal  conscience  was  born.  Almost  as  though  by 
the  light  of  the  flames  which  engulfed  it,  the  city  be- 
gan to  see  itself  as  it  had  never  seen  itself  before:  to 

41 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

take  account  of  stock,  to  plan  broadly  for  the  future. 

Nor  has  the  new-born  spirit  died.  Only  last  year  an 
extensive  red-light  district  was  closed  effectively  and 
once  for  all.  Baltimore  is  to-day  free  from  flagrant 
commercialized  vice.  And  if  not  quite  all  the  old  cobble 
pavements  and  open-gutter  drains  have  been  eliminated, 
there  are  but  few  of  them  left — left  almost  as  though  for 
purposes  of  contrast — and  the  Baltimorean  who  takes 
you  to  the  Ghetto  and  shows  you  these  ancient  remnants 
may  immediately  thereafter  escort  you  to  the  Fallsway, 
where  the  other  side  of  the  picture  is  presented. 

The  Fallsway  is  a  brand-new  boulevard  of  pleasing 
aspect,  the  peculiar  feature  of  which  is  that  it  is  nothing 
more  or  less  than  a  cover  over  iihe  top  of  Jones's  Falls, 
which  figured  in  the  early  history  of  Baltimore  as  a 
water  course,  but  which  later  came  to  figure  as  a  great, 
open,  trunk  sewer. 

Every  one  in  Baltimore  is  proud  of  the  Fallsway,  but 
particularly  so  are  the  city  engineers  who  carried  the 
work  through.  \\'hile  in  Baltimore  I  had  the  pleasure 
of  meeting  one  of  these  gentlemen,  and  I  can  assure  you 
that  no  young  head  of  a  family  was  ever  more  delighted 
with  his  new  cottage  in  a  suburb,  his  wife,  his  children, 
his  garden,  and  his  collie  puppy,  than  was  this  engineer 
with  his  boulevard  sewer.  Like  a  lover,  he  carried  pic- 
tures of  it  in  his  pocket,  and  like  a  lover  he  would  as- 
sure you  that  it  w^as  "not  like  other  sewers."  Nor  could 
he  speak  of  it  without  beginning  to  wish  to  take  you  out 
to  see  it — not  merely  for  a  motor  ride  along  the  top  of  it, 

42 


TRIUMPHANT  DEFEAT 

either.  No,  his  hospitality  did  not  stop  there.  When 
he  invited  you  to  a  sewer  he  invited  you  in.  And  if  you 
went  in  with  him,  no  one  could  make  you  come  out  until 
you  wanted  to. 

As  he  told  my  companion  and  me  of  the  three  great 
tubes,  the  walks  beside  them,  the  conduits  for  gas  and 
electricity,  and  all  the  other  wonders  of  the  place,  I  be- 
gan to  wish  that  we  might  go  with  him,  for,  though  we 
have  been  to  a  good  many  places  together,  this  was 
something  new :  it  was  the  first  time  we  had  ever  been 
invited  to  drop  into  a  sewer  and  make  ourselves  as  much 
at  home  as  though  we  lived  there. 

My  companion,  however,  seemed  unsympathetic  to  the 
project. 

"Sewers,  you  know,"  he  said,  when  I  taxed  him  with 
indifference,  "have  come  to  have  a  very  definite  place  in 
both  the  literary  and  the  graphic  arts.  How  do  you  pro- 
pose to  treat  it?" 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"When  you  write  about  it:  Are  you  going  to  write 
about  it  as  a  realist,  a  mystic,  or  a  romanticist?" 

I  said  I  did  n't  know. 

"Well,  a  man  who  is  going  to  wTite  of  a  sewer  ought 
to  know,"  he  told  me  severely.  "You  're  not  up  to 
sewers  yet.  They  're  too  big  for  you.  If  you  take  my 
advice  you  '11  keep  out  of  the  sewers  for  the  present  and 
stick  to  the  gutters." 

So  I  did. 


43 


CHAPTER  V 
TERRAPIN  AND  THINGS 

BALTIMORE  society  has  a  Maryland  and  Vir- 
ginia base,  but  is  seasoned  with  famiHes  of 
Acadian  descent,  and  with  others  descended  from 
the  Pennsylvania  Dutch — those  "Dutch"  who,  by  the 
way,  are  not  Dutch  at  all,  being  of  Saxon  and  Bavarian 
extraction.  Many  Virginians  settled  in  Baltimore  after 
the  war,  and  it  may  be  in  part  owing  to  this  fact,  that 
fox-hunting  with  horse  and  hound,  as  practised  for 
three  centuries  past  in  England,  and  for  nearly  two 
centuries  by  Virginia's  country  gentlemen,  is  carried  on 
extensively  in  the  neighborhood  of  Baltimore,  by  the 
Green  Spring  Valley  Hunt  Club,  the  Elkridge  Fox- 
Hunting  Club  and  some  others — which  brings  me  to  the 
subject  of  clubs  in  general. 

The  Baltimore  Country  Club,  at  Roland  Park,  just 
beyond  the  city  limits,  has  a  large,  well-set  clubhouse,  an 
active  membership,  and  charming  rolling  golf  links,  one 
peculiarity  of  the  course  being  that  a  part  of  the  city's 
water-supply  system  has  been  utilized  for  hazards. 

The  two  characteristic  clubs  of  the  city  itself,  the 
Maryland  Club  and  the  Baltimore  Club,  are  known  the 
country  over.  The  former  occupies  a  position  in  Balti- 
more comparable  with  that  of  the  Union  Club  in  New 

44 


TERRAPIN  AND  THINGS 

York,  the  Chicago  Club  in  Chicago,  or  the  Pacific  Union 
in  San  Francisco,  and  has  to  its  credit  at  least  one 
famous  dish:    Terrapin,  Maryland  Club  Style. 

The  Baltimore  Club  is  used  by  a  younger  group  of 
men  and  has  a  particularly  pleasant  home  in  a  large 
mansion,  formerly  the  residence  of  the  Abell  family, 
long  known  in  connection  with  that  noteworthy  old  sheet, 
the  Baltimore  "Sun,"  which.  It  may  be  remarked  in  pass- 
ing, is  curiously  referred  to  by  many  Baltimoreans,  not 
as  the  "Sun,"  but  as  the  "Sun-paper." 

This  odd  item  reminds  me  of  another :  In  the  Balti- 
telephone  book  I  chanced  to  notice  under  the  letter  "F" 
the  entry : 

Fisher,  Frank,  of  J. 

Upon  inquiry  I  learned  that  the  significance  of  this 
was  that,  there  being  more  than  one  gentleman  of  the 
name  of  Frank  Fisher  in  the  city,  this  Mr.  Frank  Fisher 
added  "of  J"  to  his  name  (meaning  "son  of  John")  for 
purposes  of  differentiation.  I  was  informed  further 
that  this  custom  is  not  uncommon  In  Baltimore,  In  cases 
where  a  name  Is  duplicated,  and  I  was  shown  an- 
other example:  that  of  Mr.  John  Fyfe  Symington 
of  S. 

A  typically  southern  institution  of  long  standing,  and 
highly  characteristic  of  the  social  life  of  Baltimore,  Is 
the  Bachelors'  Cotillion,  one  of  the  oldest  dancing  clubs 
In  the  country.  During  the  season  this  organization 
gives  a  series  of  some  half-dozen  balls  which  are  the 
events  of  the  fashionable  year. 

45 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

The  organization  and  general  character  of  the  Bache- 
lors' Cotillion  is  not  unlike  that  of  the  celebrated  St. 
Cecilia  Society  of  Charleston.  The  cost  of  member- 
ship is  so  slight  that  almost  any  eligible  young  man 
can  easily  afford  it.  There  is,  however,  a  long  waiting- 
list.  The  club  is  controlled  by  a  board  of  governors, 
the  members  of  which  hold  office  for  life,  and  who,  in- 
stead of  being  elected  by  the  organization  are  selected 
in  camera  by  the  board  itself,  when  vacancies  occur. 

The  balls  given  by  this  society  are  known  as  the  ^Mon- 
day  Germans,  and  at  these  balls,  wdiich  are  held  in  the 
Lyric  Theater,  the  city's  debutantes  are  presented  to 
society.  As  in  all  southern  cities,  much  is  made  of 
debutantes  in  Baltimore.  On  the  occasion  of  their  first 
Monday  German  all  their  friends  send  them  flowers, 
and  they  appear  flower-laden  at  the  ball,  followed  by 
their  relatives  w^ho  are  freighted  down  with  their  dar- 
lings' superfluous  bouquets.  The  modern  steps  are 
danced  at  these  balls,  but  there  are  usually  a  few  cotillion 
figures,  albeit  without  ''favors."  And  perhaps  the  best 
part  of  it  all  is  that  the  first  ball  of  the  season,  and  the 
Christmas  ball,  end  at  one  o'clock,  and  that  all  the  others 
end  at  midnight.  That  seems  to  me  a  humane  arrange- 
ment, although  the  opinion  may  only  signify  that  I  am 
growing  old. 

Another  very  characteristic  phase  of  Baltimore  life, 
and  of  southern  life — at  least  in  many  cities — is  that, 
instead  of  dealing  with  the  baker,  and  the  grocer,  and 
the  fish-market  man  around  the  corner,  all  Baltimore 

46 


TERRAPIN  AND  THINGS 

women  go  to  the  great  market-sheds  and  do  their  own 
selecting  under  what  amounts  to  one  great  roof. 

The  Lexington  Market,  to  which  my  companion  and 
I  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  taken  by  a  Baltimore  lady, 
is  comparable,  in  its  picturesqueness  with  Les  Hallos  of 
Paris,  or  the  fascinating  market  in  Seattle,  where  the 
Japanese  pile  up  their  fresh  vegetables  with  such  charm- 
ing show  of  taste.  The  great  sheds  cover  three  long 
blocks,  and  in  the  countless  stall-like  shops  which  they 
contain  may  be  found  everything  for  the  table,  includ- 
ing flowers  to  trim  it  and  after-dinner  sweets.  I  doubt 
that  any  northern  housewife  knows  such  a  market  or 
such  a  profusion  of  comestibles.  In  one  stall  may  be 
purchased  meat,  in  the  next  vegetables,  in  the  next  fish, 
in  the  next  bread  and  cake,  in  the  next  butter  and  butter- 
milk, in  the  next  fruit,  or  game,  or  flowers,  or — at  Christ- 
mas time — tree  trimmings.  These  stalls,  with  their  con- 
tents, are  duplicated  over  and  over  again;  and  if  your 
fair  guide  be  shopping  for  a  dinner  party,  at  which  two 
men  from  out  of  town  are  to  be  initiated  into  the  de- 
lights of  the  Baltimore  cuisine,  she  may  order  up  the 
costly  and  aristocratic  Malacoclemmys,  the  diamond- 
back  terrapin,  sacred  in  Baltimore  as  is  the  Sacred  Cod 
himself  in  Boston. 

The  admirable  encyclopedia  of  Messrs.  Funk  &  Wag- 
nail's  informs  me  that  "the  diamond-back  salt-water  ter- 
rapin ...  is  caught  in  salt  marshes  along  the  coast 
from  New  England  to  Texas,  the  finest  being  those  of 
the  Massachusetts  and  the  northern  coasts."    The  italics 

47 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

are  mine;  and  upon  the  italicized  passage  I  expect  the 
mayor  and  town  council  of  Baltimore,  or  even  the 
Government  of  the  State  of  Maryland,  to  proceed  against 
Messrs.  Funk  cK:  W'agnalls,  whose  valuable  volumes 
should  forthwith  be  placed  upon  the  State's  index  ex- 
puryatorius. 

Of  a  marketman  I  obtained  the  following  lore  con- 
cerning the  tortoise  of  the  terrapin  species : 

In  the  Baltimore  markets  four  kinds  of  terrapin  are 
sold — not  counting  muskrat,  which  is  sometimes  dis- 
guised with  sauce  and  sherry  and  served  as  a  substitute. 
The  cheapest  and  toughest  terrapin  is  known  as  the 
"slider."  Slightly  superior  to  the  "slider"  is  the  "fat- 
back,"  measuring,  usually,  about  nine  or  ten  inches  in 
length,  and  costing,  at  retail,  fifty  cents  to  a  dollar,  ac- 
cording to  season  and  demand.  Somewhat  better  than 
the  "fat-back,"  but  of  about  the  same  size  and  cost,  is 
the  "golden-stripe"  terrapin;  but  all  these  are  the  merest 
poor  relations  of  the  diamond-back.  Some  diamond- 
back  terrapin  are  supplied  for  the  Baltimore  market 
from  North  Carolina,  but  these,  my  marketman  assured 
me.  are  inferior  to  those  of  Chesapeake  Bay.  (Every- 
thing in,  or  from.  North  Carolina  seems  to  be  inferior, 
according  to  the  people  of  the  other  Southern  States.) 

Although  there  is  a  closed  season  for  terrapin,  the 
value  of  the  diamond-back  causes  him  to  be  relentlessly 
hunted  during  the  open  season,  with  the  result  that,  like 
the  delectable  lobster,  he  is  passing.     As  the  foolish 

48 


If  she  is  shopping  for  a  dinner  party,  she  may  order  the  costly  and  aristocratic 
diamond-back  terrapm,  sacred  m  Baltimore  as  is  the  Sacred  Cod  in  Boston 


TERRAPIN  AND  THINGS 

lobster-fishermen  of  northern  New  England  are  killing 
the  goose — or,  rather,  the  crustacean — that  lays  the 
golden  eggs,  so  are  the  terrapin  hunters  of  the  Chesa- 
peake. Two  or  three  decades  ago,  lobster  and  terrapin 
alike  were  eaten  in  the  regions  of  their  abundance  as 
cheap  food.  One  Baltimore  lady  told  me  that  her 
father's  slaves,  on  an  Eastern  Shore  plantation,  used  to 
eat  terrapin.  Yet  behold  the  cost  of  the  precious  dia- 
mond-back to-day!  In  his  smaller  sizes,  according  to 
my  marketman,  he  is  worth  about  a  dollar  an  inch, 
while  when  grown  to  fair  proportions  he  costs  as  much 
as  a  railroad  ticket  from  Baltimore  to  Chicago.  And 
for  my  part  I  would  about  as  soon  eat  the  ticket  as  the 
terrapin. 

Of  a  number  of  other  odd  items  which  help  to  give 
Baltimore  distinct  flavor  I  find  the  following  in  my  note- 
books: 

There  are  good  street  railways;  also  'bus  lines  oper- 
ated by  the  United  Railways  Company.  Under  the 
terms  of  its  charter  this  company  was  originally  obliged 
to  turn  over  to  the  city  thirteen  per  cent,  of  its  gross  in- 
come, to  be  expended  upon  the  upkeep  of  parks.  Of 
late  years  the  amount  has  been  reduced  to  nine  per  cent. 
The  parks  are  admirable. 

Freight  rates  from  the  west  to  Baltimore  are,  I  am 
informed,  enough  lower  than  freight  rates  to  New  York, 
Boston,  or  Philadelphia,  to  give  Baltimore  a  decided  ad- 
vantage as  a  point  of  export.     Also  she  is  admirably 

49 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

situated  as  to  sources  of  coal  supply.  (I  do  not  care 
much  for  the  last  two  items,  myself,  but  put  them  in  to 
please  the  Chamber  of  Commerce.) 

It  is  the  habit  of  my  companion  and  myself,  when 
visiting  strange  cities,  to  ask  for  interesting  eating- 
places  of  one  sort  or  another.  In  Baltimore  there  seems 
to  be  no  choice  but  to  take  meals  in  hotels — unless  one 
may  wish  to  go  to  the  Dutch  Tea  room  or  the  Woman's 
Exchange  for  a  shoppers'  lunch,  and  to  see  (in  the  lat- 
ter establishment)  great  numbers  of  ladies  sitting  upon 
tall  stools  and  eating  at  a  lunch-counter — a  somewhat 
curious  spectacle,  perhaps,  but  neither  pleasing  to  the 
eye  nor  thrilling  to  the  senses. 

The  nearest  thing  to  "character"  which  I  found  in  a 
Baltimore  eating-place  was  at  an  establishment  known 
as  Kelly's  Oyster  House,  a  place  in  a  dark  quarter  of  the 
town.  It  had  the  all-night  look  about  it,  and  the  negro 
waiters  showed  themselves  not  unacquainted  with  cer- 
tain of  the  city's  gilded  youth.  Kelly's  is  a  sort  of 
southern  version  of  "Jack's" — if  you  know  Jack's. 
But  I  don't  think  Jack's  has  any  flight  of  stairs  to  fall 
down,  such  as  Kelly's  has. 

The  dining  rooms  of  the  various  hotels  are  consider- 
ably used,  one  judges,  by  the  citizens  of  Baltimore.  The 
Kernan  Hotel,  which  we  visited  one  night  after  the 
theater,  looked  like  Broadway.  Tables  w^ere  crowded 
together  and  there  w^as  dancing  between  them — and  be- 
tween mouthfuls.     So,  too,  at  the  Belvedere,  which  is 

50 


TERRAPIN  AND  THINGS 

used  considerably  by  Baltimore's  gay  and  fashionable 
people. 

My  companion  and  I  stayed  at  the  Belvedere  and 
found  it  a  good  hotel,  albeit  one  which  has,  I  think, 
become  a  shade  too  well  accustomed  to  being  called 
good.  Perhaps  because  of  a  city  ordinance,  perhaps 
because  the  waiters  want  to  go  to  bed,  they  have  a 
trick,  in  the  Belvedere  dining-room,  during  the  cold 
weather,  of  opening  the  windows  and  freezing  out  such 
dilatory  supper-guests  as  would  fain  sit  up  and  talk. 
This  is  a  system  even  more  effective  than  the  ancient 
one  of  mopping  up  the  floors,  piling  chairs  upon  the 
tables,  and  turning  out  enough  lights  to  make  the  room 
dull.  A  good  post-midnight  conversationalist — and 
Baltimore  is  not  without  them — can  stand  mops,  buckets, 
and  dim  lights,  but  turn  cold  drafts  upon  his  back  and  he 
gives  up,  sends  for  his  coat,  buttons  it  about  his  paunch 
and  goes  sadly  home. 

It  is  fitting  that  last  of  all  should  be  mentioned  the 
man  who  views  you  with  keen  eye  as  you  arrive  in 
Baltimore,  and  who  watches  you  depart.  If  you  are  in 
Baltimore  he  knows  it.  And  when  you  go  away  he 
knows  that,  too.  Also,  during  racing  season,  he  knows 
whether  you  bet,  and  whether  you  won  or  lost.  He  is 
always  at  the  station  and  always  at  the  race  track,  and 
if  you  don't  belong  in  Baltimore  he  is  aware  of  it  the 
instant  he  sets  eyes  upon  you,  because  he  knows  every 
man,  woman,  child,  and  dog  in  Baltimore,  and  they  all 
know  him.     If  you  are  a  Baltimorean  you  are  already 

51 


AMERICAN  ADVKXTURES 

aware  that  1  refer  to  the  sapient  McXeal,  policeman  at 
the  Union  Station. 

McNeal  and  Cardinal  Gibbons  are,  I  take  it,  the  two 
preeminent  figures  of  the  city.  Their  duties,  I  admit, 
are  not  alike,  but  each  performs  his  duties  with  discre- 
tion, with  devotion,  with  distinction.  The  latter  has  al- 
ready celebrated  the  thirtieth  anniversary  of  his  nomi- 
nation as  cardinal,  but  the  former  is  well  on  the  way 
toward  his  fortieth  anniversary  as  officer  at  the  Union 
Station. 

McNeal  is  an  artist.  He  loves  his  work.  And  when 
his  day  off  comes  and  he  puts  on  citizen's  clothing  and 
goes  out  for  a  good  time,  where  do  you  suppose  he  goes  ? 

Why  down  to  the  station,  of  course,  to  talk  things 
over  with  the  man  who  is  relieving  him ! 


J- 


CHAPTER  VI 

DOUGHOREGAN  MANOR  AND  THE 
CARROLLS 

IF  I  am  to  be  honest  about  the  South,  and  about  my- 
self— and  I  propose  to  be — I  must  admit  that, 
though  I  approached  the  fabled  land  in  a  most 
friendly  spirit,  I  had  nevertheless  become  a  little  tired 
of  the  southern  family  tree,  the  southern  ancestral 
hall,  and  the  old  southern  negro  servant  of  stage  and 
story,  and  just  a  little  skeptical  about  them.  Almost 
unconsciously,  at  first,  I  had  begun  to  wonder  whether, 
instead  of  being  things  of  actuality,  they  were  not, 
rather,  a  mere  set  of  romantic  trade-marks,  so  to  speak ; 
symbols  signifying  the  South  as  the  butler  with  side 
whiskers  signifies  English  comedy;  as  "Her"  visit  to 
"His"  rooms,  in  the  third  act,  signifies  English  drama; 
or  as  double  doorways  in  a  paneled  "set"  signify  French 
farce. 

Furthermore,  it  had  occurred  to  me  that  of  persons 
of  southern  accent,  or  merely  southern  extraction, 
whom  I  had  encountered  in  the  North,  a  strangely  high 
percentage  were  not  only  of  "fine  old  southern  family," 
but  of  peculiarly  tenacious  purpose  in  respect  to  having 
the  matter  understood. 

53 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

I  cannot  pretend  to  say  when  the  "professional  South- 
erner," as  we  know  him  in  New  York,  began  to  operate, 
nor  shall  I  attempt  to  place  the  literary  blame  for  his 
existence — as  Alark  Twain  attempted  to  place  upon  Sir 
Walter  Scott  the  blame  for  southern  "chivalry,"  and 
almost  for  the  Civil  War  itself.  Let  me  merely  say, 
then,  that  I  should  not  be  surprised  to  learn  that  "Col- 
onel Carter  of  Cartersville" — that  lovable  old  fraud  who 
did  not  mean  to  be  a  fraud  at  all,  but  whose  naivete 
passed  the  bounds  of  human  credulity — was  not  far  re- 
moved from  the  bottom  of  the  matter. 

In  the  tenor  of  these  sentiments  my  companion  shared 
— though  I  should  add  that  he  complained  bitterly  about 
agreeing  with  me,  saying  that  with  hats  alike,  and  over- 
coats alike,  and  trunks  alike,  and  suitcases  alike,  we  al- 
ready resembled  two  members  of  a  minstrel  troupe,  and 
that  now  since  we  were  beginning  to  think  alike,  through 
traveling  so  much  together,  our  friends  would  not 
be  able  to  tell  us  apart  when  we  got  home  again — in 
spite  of  this  he  admitted  to  the  same  suspicion  of  the 
South  as  I  expressed.  Wherefore  we  entered  the  re- 
gion like  a  pair  of  agnostics  entering  the  great  beyond : 
skeptical,  but  ready  to  be  "shown." 

It  was  with  the  generous  purpose  of  "showing"  us 
that  a  Baltimore  friend  of  ours  called  for  us  one  day 
with  his  motor  car  and  was  presently  wafting  us  over 
the  good  oiled  roads  of  INIaryland,  through  sweet,  rolling 
country,  which  seemed  to  have  been  made  to  be  ridden 
over  upon  horseback. 

54 


DOUGHOREGAN  MANOR 

It  was  autumn,  but  though  the  chill  of  northern 
autumn  was  in  the  air,  the  coloring  was  not  so  high  in 
key  as  in  New  York  or  New  England,  the  foliage  being 
less  brilliant,  but  rich  with  subtle  harmonies  of  brown 
and  green,  blending  softly  together  as  in  a  faded  tap- 
estry, and  giving  the  landscape  an  expression  of  brood- 
ing tenderness. 

After  passing  through  Ellicott  City,  an  old,  shambling 
town  quite  out  of  character  with  its  new-sounding 
name,  which  has  such  a  western  ring  to  it,  we  traversed 
for  several  miles  the  old  Frederick  Turnpike — formerly 
a  national  highway  between  East  and  West — swooping 
up  and  down  over  a  series  of  little  hills  and  vales,  and 
at  length  turned  off  into  a  private  road  winding  through 
a  venerable  forest,  which  was  like  an  old  Gothic  cathe- 
dral with  its  pavement  of  brown  leaves  and  its  tree- 
trunk  columns,  tall,  gray,  and  slender. 

When  we  had  progressed  for  perhaps  a  mile,  we 
emerged  upon  a  slight  eminence  commanding  a  broad 
view  of  meadow  and  of  woodland,  and  in  turn  com- 
manded by  a  great  house. 

The  house  was  of  buff-colored  brick.  It  was  low  and 
very  long,  with  wings  extending  from  its  central  struc- 
ture like  beautiful  arms  flung  wide  in  welcome,  and  at 
the  end  of  each  a  building  like  an  ornament  balanced  in 
an  outstretched  hand.  The  graceful  central  portico, 
rising  by  several  easy  steps  from  the  driveway  level,  the 
long  line  of  cornice,  the  window  sashes,  the  delicate 
wooden  railing  surmounting  the  roof,  the  charming  lit- 

55 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

tie  tower  which  so  gracefully  held  its  place  above  the 
geometrical  center  of  the  house,  the  bell  tower  crown- 
ing one  wing  at  its  extremity — all  these  were  white. 

No  combination  of  colors  can  be  lovelier,  in  such  a 
house,  than  yellow-buff  and  white,  provided  they  be 
brightened  by  some  notes  of  green ;  and  these  notes  were 
not  lacking,  for  several  aged  elms,  occupying  symmet- 
rical positions  with  regard  to  the  house,  seemed  to  gaze 
down  upon  it  with  the  adoration  of  a  group  of  mothers, 
aunts,  and  grandmothers,  as  they  held  their  soft  dra- 
peries protectively  above  it.  The  green  of  the  low  ter- 
race— called  a  "haha,"  supposedly  with  reference  to  the 
mirth-provoking  possibilities  of  an  accidental  step  over 
the  edge — did  not  reach  the  base  of  the  buft'  walls,  but 
was  lost  in  a  fringe  of  clustering  shrubbery,  from  which 
patches  of  lustrous  English  ivy  clambered  upward  over 
the  brick,  to  lay  strong,  mischievous  fingers  upon  the 
blinds  of  certain  second-story  windows.  The  blinds 
were  of  course  green;  green  blinds  being  as  necessary 
to  an  American  window  as  eyelashes  to  an  eye. 

Immediately  before  the  portico  and  centering  upon  it 
the  drive  swung  in  a  spacious  circle,  from  which  there 
broke,  at  a  point  directly  opposite  the  portico,  an  ave- 
nue, straight  and  long  as  a  rifle  range,  and  lovely  as 
the  loveliest  of  New  England  village  greens.  Down  the 
middle  of  this  broad  way,  between  grass  borders  each  as 
wide  as  a  great  boulevard,  and  double  rows  of  patri- 
archal trees,  ran  a  road  which,  in  the  old  days,  con- 
tinued straight  to  Annapolis,  thirty  or  more  miles  away, 

56 


DOUGHOREGAN  MANOR 

where  was  the  town  house  of  the  builder  of  this  manor. 
As  it  stands  to-day  the  avenue  is  less  than  half  a  mile 
long,  but  whatever  its  length,  and  whether  one  look 
down  it  from  the  house,  or  up  the  gentle  grade  from 
the  far  end,  to  where  the  converging  lines  of  grass  and 
foliage  and  sky  melt  into  the  house,  it  has  about  it  some- 
thing of  unreality,  something  of  enchantment,  something 
of  that  quality  one  finds  in  the  rhapsodic  landscapes  of 
those  poet  painters  who  dream  of  distant  shimmering 
palaces  and  supernal  vistas  peopled  by  fauns  and  nymphs 
dancing  amid  the  trunks  of  giant  trees  whose  luxuriant 
dark  tops  are  contoured  like  the  cumulus  white  clouds 
floating  above  them. 

There  is  nothing  "baronial,"  nothing  arrogant,  about 
Doughoregan  Manor,  for  though  the  house  is  noble,  its 
nobility,  consisting  in  spaciousness,  simplicity,  and  grace 
combined  with  age,  fits  well  into  what,  it  seems  to  me, 
should  be  the  architectural  ideals  of  a  republic.  No 
house  could  be  freer  of  unessential  embellishment ;  in  de- 
tail it  is  plain  almost  to  severity;  yet  the  full  impression 
that  it  gives,  far  from  being  austere,  is  of  friendliness 
and  hospitality.  An  approachable  sort  of  house,  a 
"homelike"  house,  it  is  perhaps  less  "Imposing"  than 
some  other  mansions,  coeval  with  it,  In  Virginia,  in 
Annapolis,  and  in  Charleston;  and  yet  It  Is  as  Impressive, 
In  Its  own  way,  as  Warwick  Castle,  or  Hurstmonceaux, 
or  Loches,  or  Chlnon,  or  Chenonceaux,  or  Heidelberg — 
not  that  It  is  so  vast,  that  It  has  glowering  battlements, 
or  that  it  stuns  the  eye,  but  for  precisely  opposite  rea- 

57 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

sons:  because  it  is  a  consummate  expression  of  repub- 
lican cultivation,  of  a  fine  old  American  home,  and  of 
the  fine  old  American  gentleman  who  built  it,  and  whose 
descendants  inhabit  it  to-day:  Charles  Carroll  of  Car- 
rollton,  last  to  survive  of  those  who  signed  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence. 

The  first  Charles  Carroll,  known  in  the  family  as  "the 
Settler,"  came  from  Ireland  in  1688,  and  became  a  great 
landowner  in  Maryland.  He  was  a  highly  educated 
gentleman  and  a  Roman  Catholic,  as  have  also  been  his 
descendants.     He  acted  as  agent  for  Lord  Baltimore. 

His  son,  Charles  Carroll  of  Annapolis,  or  "Break- 
neck Carroll''  (so  called  because  he  was  killed  by  a  fall 
from  the  steps  of  his  house),  built  the  Carroll  mansion 
at  Annapolis,  now  the  property  of  the  Redemptionist 
Order. 

The  third  and  most  famous  member  of  the  family 
was  Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton,  "the  Signer,"  builder 
of  the  manor  house  at  Doughoregan — which,  by  the 
way,  derives  its  name  from  a  combination  of  the  old 
Irish  words  dough,  meaning  "house"  or  "court,"  and 
O'Ragan,  meaning  "of  the  King" ;  the  whole  being  pro- 
nounced, as  with  a  slight  brogue,  "Doo-ray-gan,"  the  ac- 
cent falling  on  the  middle  syllable — this  Charles  Car- 
roll, "the  Signer,"  most  famous  of  his  line,  was  "Break- 
neck's"  only  son.  When  eight  years  old  he  was  sent  to 
France  to  be  educated  by  the  Jesuits.  He  spent  six 
years  at  Saint-Omer,  one  at  Rheims,  two  at  the  College 
of  Louis  le  Grand,  one  at  Bourges,  where  he  studied  civil 

58 


DOUGHOREGAN  MANOR 

law,  and  after  some  further  time  in  college  in  Paris  went 
to  London,  entered  the  Middle  Temple  and  there  worked 
at  the  common  law  until  his  return  to  Maryland  in  1765. 

Although  Maryland  was  founded  by  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic Baron  Baltimore  on  a  basis  of  religious  toleration, 
the  Church  of  England  had  later  come  to  be  the  es- 
tablished church  in  the  British  colonies  in  America,  and 
Roman  Catholics  were  unjustly  used,  being  disfran- 
chised, taxed  for  the  support  of  the  English  Church,  and 
denied  the  right  to  establish  schools  or  churches  of  their 
own,  to  celebrate  the  Mass,  or  to  bear  arms— the  bear- 
ing of  arms  having  been  ''at  that  time  the  insignia  of  so- 
cial position  and  gentle  breeding." 

Finding  this  situation  well-nigh  intolerable,  Carroll 
of  CarroUton,  already  a  man  of  great  wealth,  joined 
with  his  cousin,  Father  John  Carroll,  who  later  be- 
came first  Archbishop  of  Baltimore  (for  many  years 
the  only  Roman  Catholic  diocese  in  the  United  States, 
embracing  all  States  and  Territories),  in  an  appeal  to 
the  King  of  France  for  a  grant  of  land  in  what  is  now 
Arkansas,  but  was  then  a  part  of  Louisiana,  this  land 
to  be  used  as  a  refuge  for  Roman  Catholics  and  Jesuits, 
whom  the  Carrolls  proposed  to  lead  thither  precisely  as 
Cecilius  Calvert,  Lord  Baltimore,  had  led  them  to  Mary- 
land to  escape  persecution. 

The  Roman  Catholics  were  not,  however,  by  this  time 
the  only  American  colonists  who  felt  themselves  abused ; 
the  whole  country  was  chafing,  and  the  seeds  of  revolu- 
tion were  beginning  to  show  their  red  sprouts. 

59 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

It  might  have  been  expected  that  Mr.  Carroll,  being 
the  richest  man  in  the  country,  would  hesitate  at  re- 
bellion, but  he  did  not.  Unlike  some  of  our  present-day 
citizens  of  foreign  extraction,  and  in  circumstances  in- 
volving not  merely  sentiment,  but  property  and  perhaps 
life,  he  showed  no  tendency  to  split  his  Americanism,  but 
boldly  threw  his  noble  old  cocked  hat  into  the  ring.  Nor 
did  he  require  a  Roosevelt  to  make  his  duty  clear  to  him. 

In  1775  Mr.  Carroll  was  a  delegate  to  the  Revolu- 
tionary Convention  of  Maryland;  in  1776  he  went  with 
three  other  commissioners  (Benjamin  Franklin,  Samuel 
Chase,  and  Father  John  Carroll)  to  try  to  induce  the 
Canadian  colonies  to  join  in  the  revolt;  and  soon  after 
his  return  from  this  unsuccessful  journey  he  signed  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  Of  the  circumstances  of 
the  signing  the  late  Robert  C.  Winthrop  of  Boston  gave 
the  following  description : 

"Will  you  sign  ?"  said  Hancock  to  Charles  Carroll. 

"Most  willingly,"  was  the  reply. 

"There  goes'  two  millions  with  the  dash  of  a  pen,"  says  one  of 
those  standing  by ;  while  another  remarks :  "Oh,  Carroll,  you  will 
get  off,  there  are  so  many  Charles  Carrolls." 

And  then  we  may  see  him  stepping  back  to  the  desk  and  putting 
that  addition  "of  Carrollton"  to  his  name,  which  will  designate 
him  forever,  and  be  a  prouder  title  of  nobility  than  those  in  the 
peerage  of  Great  Britain,  which  were  afterward  adorned  by  his 
accomplished  and  fascinating  granddaughters. 

Some  doubt  has  been  cast  upon  this  tale  by  the  fact 
that  papers  in  possession  of  the  Carroll  family  prove 
that  Air.  Carroll  was  wont  to  sign  as  "of  Carrollton" 

60 


DOUGHOREGAN  MANOR 

long  before  the  Declaration.  Further,  it  is  recorded 
that  John  H.  B.  Latrobe,  Mr.  Carroll's  contemporaneous 
biographer,  never  heard  the  story  from  the  subject  of  his 


writmgs. 


Nevertheless,  I  believe  that  it  is  true,  for  it  seems  to 
me  likely  that  though  Mr.  Carroll  used  the  subscrip- 
tion "of  Carrollton"  in  conducting  his  affairs  at  home, 
where  there  was  chance  for  confusion  between  his  son 
Charles,  his  cousin  Charles,  and  himself,  he  might  well 
have  been  inclined  to  omit  it  from  a  public  document,  as 
to  the  signers  of  which  there  could  be  no  confusion. 
Further,  the  fact  that  he  never  told  the  story  to  Latrobe 
does  not  invalidate  it,  for  as  every  man  (and  every 
man's  wife)  knows,  men  do  not  remember  to  tell  every- 
thing to  their  wives,  and  it  is  still  less  likely  that 
they  tell  everything  to  their  biographers.  Further  still, 
Mr.  Winthrop  visited  Mr.  Carroll  just  before  the  lat- 
ter's  death,  and  as  he  certainly  did  not  invent  the  story 
it  seems  probable  that  he  got  it  from  "the  Signer"  him- 
self. Last,  I  like  the  story  and  intend  to  believe  it  any- 
way— which,  it  occurs  to  me,  is  the  best  reason  of  all,  and 
the  one  most  resembling  my  reason  for  being  more  or 
less  Episcopalian  and  Republican. 

Latrobe  tells  us  that  Mr.  Carroll  was,  in  his  old  age, 
"a  small,  attenuated  old  man,  with  a  prominent  nose  and 
somewhat  receding  chin,  and  small  eyes  that  sparkled 
when  he  was  interested  in  conversation.  His  head  was 
small  and  his  hair  white,  rather  long  and  silky,  while 
his  face  and  forehead  were  seamed  with  wrinkles." 

6i 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

From  the  same  source,  and  others,  we  glean  the  in- 
formation that  he  was  a  charming  and  courteous  gentle- 
man, that  he  practised  early  rising  and  early  retiring, 
was  regular  at  meals,  and  at  morning  and  evening  prayer 
in  the  chapel,  that  he  took  cold  baths  and  rode  horse- 
back, and  that  for  several  hours  each  day  he  read  the 
Greek,  Latin,  English,  or  French  classics. 

At  the  age  of  eighty-three  he  rode  a  horse  in  a  pro- 
cession in  Baltimore,  carrying  in  one  hand  a  copy  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence ;  and  six  years  later,  when 
by  that  strange  freak  of  chance  ex-Presidents  Adams 
and  Jefferson  died  simultaneously  on  July  4,  leaving  Mr. 
Carroll  the  last  surviving  signer  of  the  Declaration,  he 
took  part  in  a  memorial  parade  and  service  in  their 
memory.  In  1826,  at  the  age  of  eighty-nine,  he  was 
elected  a  director  of  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio  Railroad 
Company,  and  at  the  age  of  ninety  he  laid  the  founda- 
tion stone  marking  the  commencement  of  that  rail- 
road— the  first  important  one  in  the  United  States. 
We  are  told  that  at  this  time  Mr.  Carroll  was  erect  in 
carriage  and  that  he  could  see  and  hear  as  well  as  most 
men.  In  1832,  having  lived  to  within  five  years  of  a 
full  century,  having  been  active  in  the  Revolution,  having 
seen  the  War  of  181 2,  he  died  less  than  thirty  years  be- 
fore the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War,  and  was  buried  in 
the  chapel  of  the  manor  house. 

This  chapel,  the  like  of  which  does  not,  so  far  as  I 
know,  exist  in  any  other  American  house,  is  the  burial 
place  of  a  number  of  the  Carrolls.     It  is  used  to-day, 

62 


DOUGHOREGAN  MANOR 

regular  Sunday  services  being  held  for  the  people  of  the 
neighborhood.  An  alcove  to  the  south  of  the  chancel 
contains  seats  for  members  of  the  family,  and  has  access 
to  the  main  portion  of  the  house  by  a  passageway  which 
passes  the  bedroom  known  as  the  Cardinal's  room,  a 
large  chamber  furnished  with  massive  old  pieces  of  ma- 
hogany and  decorated  in  red.  This  room  has  been  occu- 
pied by  Lafayette,  by  John  Carroll,  cousin  of  "the 
Signer"  and  first  archbishop  of  Baltimore,  and  by  Car- 
dinal Gibbons.  It  is  on  the  ground  floor  and  its  win- 
dows command  the  series  of  terraces,  with  their  plant- 
ings of  old  box,  which  slope  away  to  gardens  more  than 
a  century  old. 

Viewed  in  one  light  Doughoregan  Manor  is  a  monu- 
ment, in  another  it  is  a  treasure  house  of  ancient  por- 
traits and  furniture  and  silver,  but  above  all  it  is  a  home. 
The  beautifully  proportioned  dining-room,  the  wide  hall 
which  passes  through  the  house  from  the  front  portico 
to  another  overlooking  the  terraces  and  gardens  at  the 
back,  the  old  shadowy  library  with  its  tree-calf  bind- 
ings, the  sunny  breakfast  room,  the  spacious  bedcham- 
bers with  their  four-posters  and  their  cheerful  chintzes, 
the  big  bright  shiny  pantries  and  kitchens,  all  have  that 
pleasant,  easy  air  which  comes  of  being  lived  in,  and 
which  is  never  attained  in  a  ''show  place"  which  is 
merely  a  ''show  place"  and  nothing  more.  No  dining 
table  at  which  great  personages  have  dined  in  the  past 
has  the  charm  of  one  the  use  of  which  has  been  steadily 
continued ;  no  old  chair  but  is  better  for  being  sat  in ;  no 

63 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

ancient  Sheffield  tea  service  but  gains  immeasurably  in 
charm  from  being  used  for  tea  to-day ;  no  old  Venetian 
mirror  but  what  is  lovelier  for  reflecting  the  beauties  of 
the  present  as  it  reflected  those  of  the  past ;  no  little  old- 
time  crib  but  what  is  better  for  a  modern  baby  in  it.  It 
is  pleasant,  therefore,  to  report  that,  like  all  other  things 
the  house  contains,  the  crib  at  Doughoregan  Manor  was 
being  used  when  we  were  there,  for  in  it  rested  the  baby 
son  of  the  house;  by  name  Charles,  and  of  his  line  the 
ninth.  Further,  it  may  be  observed  that  from  his 
youthful  parents,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Charles  Bancroft  Car- 
roll, present  master  and  mistress  of  the  place,  Master 
Charles  seemed  to  have  inherited  certain  amiable  traits. 
Indeed,  in  some  respects,  he  outdoes  his  parents.  For 
example,  where  the  father  and  mother  were  cordial,  the 
son  chewed  ruminatively  upon  his  fingers  and  fastened 
upon  my  companion  a  gaze  not  merely  interested, 
but  expressive  of  enraptured  astonishment.  Likewise, 
though  his  parents  received  us  kindly,  they  did  not  crow 
and  gurgle  with  delight;  and  though,  on  our  departure, 
they  said  that  we  might  come  again,  they  neither  waved 
their  hands  nor  yet  blew  bubbles. 

Though  the  house  has  been  "done  over"  four  times, 
and  though  the  paneling  was  torn  out  of  one  room 
to  make  w^ay  for  wall  paper  when  wall  paper  came  into 
style,  everything  has  now  been  restored,  and  the  place 
stands  to-day  to  all  intents  and  purposes  exactly  as  it 
was.  That  so  few  changes  were  ever  made  in  it,  that  it 
weathered  successfully,  with  its  contents,  the  disastrous 

64 


1) 


J2  c 


ta 


t/l    C/3 

O  o 


DOUGHOREGAN  MANOR 

period  of  Eastlake  furniture  and  the  American  mansard 
roof,  is  a  great  credit  to  the  Carroll  family,  and  it  is  de- 
lightful to  see  such  a  house  in  the  possession  of  those 
who  can  love  it  as  it  deserves  to  be  loved,  and  preserve 
it  as  it  deserves  to  be  preserved. 

Mr.  Charles  Bancroft  Carroll,  who  is  a  graduate  of 
Annapolis  and  a  grandson  of  the  late  Governor  John  Lee 
Carroll  of  Maryland,  now  farms  some  twenty-four  hun- 
dred acres  of  the  five  or  six  thousand  which  surround  the 
manor  house.  He  raises  blooded  cattle  and  horses,  and, 
though  he  rides  with  the  Elkridge  Hunt,  also  keeps  his 
own  pack  and  is  starting  the  Howard  County  Hounds, 
an  organization  that  will  hunt  the  country  around  the 
manor,  which  is  full  of  foxes. 

Of  the  innumerable  family  portraits  contained  in  the 
house  not  a  few  are  valuable  and  almost  all  are  pleasing. 
When  I  remarked  upon  the  high  average  of  good  looks 
among  his  progenitors,  Mr.  Carroll  smiled  in  agree- 
ment, saying:  "Yes,  I  'm  proud  of  these  pictures  of  my 
ancestors;  most  people's  ancestors  seem  to  have  looked 
like  the  dickens." 

Among  these  noteworthy  family  portraits  I  recollect 
one  of  "the  Signer"  as  a  boy,  standing  on  the  shore  and 
watching  a  ship  sail  out  to  sea ;  one  of  the  three  beauti- 
ful Caton  sisters,  his  granddaughters,  who  lived  at 
Brooklandwood,  in  the  Green  Spring  Valley,  now  the 
home  of  Mr.  Isaac  Emerson ;  one  of  Charles  Carroll  of 
Homewood,  son  of  "the  Signer" ;  and  one  of  Governor 
John  Lee  Carroll,  who  was  born  at  Homewood. 

65 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

The  Caton  sisters  and  Charles  Carroll  of  Homewood 
supply  to  the  Carroll  family  archives  that  picturesque- 
ness  which  the  history  of  every  old  family  should  pos- 
sess ;  the  former  contributing  beauty,  the  latter  dash  and 
extravagance,  those  qualities  so  annoying  in  a  living 
relative,  but  so  delightfully  suggestive  in  an  ancestor 
long  defunct.  If  anything  more  be  needed  to  round  out 
the  composition,  it  is  furnished  by  the  ghosts  of  Dough- 
oregan  Manor:  an  old  housekeeper  with  jingling  keys, 
and  an  invisible  coach,  the  w^heels  of  which  are  heard 
upon  the  driveway  before  the  death  of  any  member  of 
the  family. 

Of  the  Caton  sisters  there  were  four,  but  because  one 
of  them,  Mrs.  McTavish,  stayed  at  home  and  made  the 
life  of  her  grandfather  happy,  we  do  not  hear  so  much  of 
her  as  of  the  other  three,  who  were  internationally 
famous  for  their  pulchritude,  and  were  known  in  Eng- 
land as  "the  Three  American  Graces."  All  three  mar- 
ried British  peers,  one  becoming  ^Marchioness  of  \\'elles- 
ley,  another  Duchess  of  Leeds,  while  the  third  became 
the  wife  of  Lord  Stafford,  one  of  the  noblemen  em- 
balmed in  verse  by  Fitz-Greene  Halleck: 

Lord  Stafford  mines  for  coal  and  salt, 
The  Duke  of  Norfolk  deals  in  malt, 
The  Douglas  in  red  herrings. 

As  for  Charles  Carroll  of  Homewood,  he  w^as  hand- 
some, charming,  and  athletic,  and,  as  indicated  in  let- 
ters written  to  him  by  his  father,  caused  that  old  gentle- 

66 


DOUGHOREGAN  MANOR 

man  a  good  deal  of  anxiety.  It  is  said  that  at  one  time 
— perhaps  during  some  period  of  estrangment  from  his 
wealthy  parent — he  acted  as  a  fencing  master  in  Balti- 
more, 

At  the  age  of  twenty-five  he  settled  down — or  let  us 
hope  he  did — for  he  married  Harriet  Chew,  whose  sister 
"Peggy,"  Mrs.  John  Eager  Howard  of  Baltimore,  was  a 
celebrated  belle,  and  of  whose  own  charm  we  may  judge 
by  the  fact  that  General  Washington  asked  her  to  remain 
in  the  room  while  he  sat  to  Gilbert  Stuart,  declaring  that 
her  presence  there  would  cause  his  countenance  to  ''wear 
its  most  agreeable  expression."  The  famous  portrait 
painted  under  these  felicitous  conditions  hung  in  the 
White  House  when,  in  1814,  the  British  marched  on 
Washington;  but  when  they  took  the  city  and  burned  the 
White  House,  the  portrait  did  not  perish  with  it, 
for  history  records  that  Dolly  Madison  carried  it  to 
safety,  and  along  with  it  the  original  draft  of  the  Dec- 
laration of  Independence. 

Charles  Carroll  of  Homewood  died  before  his  father, 
"the  Signer,"  but  the  house,  Homewood,  which  the  lat- 
ter built  for  his  son  and  daughter-in-law  in  1809,  stands 
to-day  near  the  Baltimore  city  limits,  at  the  side  of 
Charles  Street  Boulevard,  amid  pleasant  modern  houses, 
many  of  which  are  of  a  design  not  out  of  harmony  with 
the  old  mansion.  Though  not  comparable  in  size  with 
the  manor  house  at  Doughoregan,  Homewood  is  an  even 
more  perfect  house,  being  one  of  the  finest  examples  of 
Georgian  architecture  to  be  found  in  the  entire  country. 

67 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

The  fate  of  this  house  is  hardly  less  fortunate  than  that 
of  the  paternal  manor,  for,  with  its  surrounding  lands,  it 
has  come  into  the  possession  of  Johns  Hopkins  Uni- 
versity. The  fields  of  Homewood  now  form  the  campus 
and  grounds  of  that  excellent  seat  of  learning,  and  the 
trustees  of  the  university  have  not  merely  preserved 
the  residence,  using  it  as  a  faculty  club,  but  have  had  the 
inspiration  to  find  in  it  the  architectural  motif  for  the  en- 
tire group  of  new  colle,Q;"e  buildings,  so  that  the  campus 
may  be  likened  to  a  bracelet  wrought  as  a  setting  for 
this  jewel  of  a  house. 


68 


CHAPTER  VII 
A  RARE  OLD  TOWN 

THE  drive  from  Baltimore  to  the  sweet,  slumber- 
ing city  of  Annapolis  is  over  a  good  road,  but 
through  barren  country.  Taken  in  the  crisp 
days  of  autumn,  by  a  northern  visitor  sufficiently  mis- 
guided to  have  supposed  that  beyond  Mason  and 
Dixon's  Line  the  winters  are  tropical  it  may  prove  an 
uncomfortable  drive — unless  he  be  able  to  borrow  a 
fur  overcoat.  It  was  on  this  drive  that  my  disillusion- 
ment concerning  the  fall  and  winter  climate  of  the  South 
began,  for,  wearing  two  cloth  overcoats,  one  over  the 
other,  I  yet  suffered  agonies  from  cold.  The  sun  shone 
down  upon  the  open  automobile  in  which  we  tore  along, 
but  its  rays  were  no  competitors  for  the  biting  wind. 
Through  lap  robes,  cloth  caps,  and  successive  layers  of 
clothing,  and  around  the  edges  of  goggles,  fine  little 
frozen  fangs  found  their  way,  like  the  pliable  beaks  of  a 
race  of  gigantic,  fabulous  mosquitoes  from  the  Arctic 
regions.  I  have  driven  an  open  car  over  the  New  Eng- 
land snows  for  miles  in  zero  weather,  and  been  warm 
by  comparison,  because  I  was  prepared. 

My  former  erroneous  ideas  as  to  the  southern  climate 
may  be  shared  by  others,  and  it  is  therefore  well,  per- 

69 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

haps,  to  enlarge  a  little  bit  upon  the  subject.  Never, 
except  during  a  winter  passed  in  a  stone  tile-floored  villa 
on  the  island  of  Capri,  whither  I  went  to  escape  the  cold, 
have  I  been  so  conscious  of  it,  as  during  fall,  winter,  and 
spring  in  the  South. 

In  the  hotels  of  the  South  one  may  keep  warm  in  cold 
weather,  but  in  private  homes  it  is  not  always  possible 
to  do  so,  for  the  popular  illusion  that  the  "sunny  South" 
is  of  a  uniformly  temperate  climate  in  the  winter  per- 
sists nowhere  more  violently  than  in  the  South  itself. 
Many  a  house  in  Virginia,  let  alone  the  other  States  far- 
ther down  the  map,  is  without  a  furnace,  and  winter  life 
in  such  houses,  with  their  ineffectual  wood  fires,  is  like 
life  in  a  refrigerator  tempered  by  the  glow  of  a  safety 
match.  As  in  Italy  and  Spain,  so  in  the  South  it  is  often 
warmer  outdoors  than  in;  more  than  once  during  my 
southern  voyage  I  was  tempted  to  resume  the  habit,  ac- 
quired in  Capri,  of  wearing  an  overcoat  in  the  house  and 
taking  it  off  on  going  out  into  the  sunshine.  True,  in 
Capri  w^e  had  roses  blooming  in  the  garden  on  Christmas 
Day,  but  that  circumstance,  far  from  proving  warmth, 
merely  proved  the  hardiness  of  roses.  So,  in  the  far 
South — excepting  Florida  and  perhaps  a  strip  of  the 
Gulf  Coast  of  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  and  Alabama — the 
blooming  of  flowers  in  the  winter  does  not  prove  that 
"Palm  Beach  suits"  and  panama  hats  invariably  make  a 
desirable  uniform. 

Furthermore,  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  because 
some  southern  winter  days  are  warm  and  others  cold,  a 

70 


A  RARE  OLD  TOWN 

Northerner  feels  cold  in  the  South  more  than  he  feels 
the  corresponding  temperature  at  home — on  somewhat 
the  principle  which  caused  the  Italians  who  went  with 
the  Duke  of  the  Abruzzi  on  his  polar  expedition  to  with- 
stand cold  more  successfully  than  did  the  Scandinavi- 
ans. 

Of  the  southern  summer  I  have  no  experience,  but  I 
have  been  repeatedly  assured  that  certain  of  the  southern 
beaches  are  nearly,  if  not  quite,  as  comfortable  in  hot 
weather  as  are  those  of  New  Jersey  or  Long  Island, 
while  in  numerous  southern  mountain  retreats  one  may 
be  fairly  cool  through  the  hot  months — a  fact  which 
spells  fortune  for  the  hotel  keepers  of  such  high-perched 
resorts  as  Asheville,  White  Sulphur  Springs,  and  the 
Hot  Springs  of  Virginia,  who  have  their  houses  full  of 
Northerners  in  winter  and  Southerners  in  summer. 

The  experience  of  arrival  in  Annapolis,  delightful  in 
any  weather  and  at  any  time  of  year,  gives  one  a  satis- 
faction almost  ecstatic  after  a  cold,  windy  automobile 
ride  such  as  we  had  suffered.  To  ache  for  the  shelter  of 
almost  any  town,  or  any  sort  of  building,  and,  with  such 
yearnings,  to  arrive  in  this  dreamy  city,  whose  mild  air 
seems  to  be  compounded  from  fresh  winds  off  a  glitter- 
ing blue  sea,  arrested  by  the  barricade  of  ancient  hos- 
pitable-looking houses,  warmed  by  the  glow  of  their  sun- 
baked red  brick,  and  freighted  with  a  ghostly  fragrance, 
as  from  the  phantoms  of  the  rose  gardens  of  a  century 
or  two  ago — to  arrive,  frigid  and  forlorn  in  such  a  haven, 

71 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

to  drink  a  cup  of  tea  in  the  old  Paca  house  (now  a  hotel), 
is  to  experience  heaven  after  purgatory.  For  there  is 
no  town  that  I  know  whose  very  house  fronts  hold  out 
to  the  stranger  that  warm,  old-fashioned  welcome  that 
Annapolis  seems  to  give. 

The  Paca  house,  which  as  a  hotel  has  acquired  the 
name  Carvel  Hall,  is  the  house  that  Winston  Churchill 
had  in  mind  as  the  Manners  house,  of  his  novel  ^'Richard 
Carvel."  A  good  idea  of  the  house,  as  it  was,  may  be 
obtained  by  visiting  the  Brice  house,  next  door,  for  the 
two  are  almost  twins.  When  Mr.  Churchill  was  a  cadet 
at  Annapolis,  before  the  modern  part  of  the  Carvel  Hall 
hotel  was  built,  there  were  the  remains  of  terraced  gar- 
dens back  of  the  old  mansion,  stepping  down  to  an  old 
spring  house,  and  a  rivulet  which  flowed  through  the 
grounds  was  full  of  watercress.  The  book  describes  a 
party  at  the  house  and  in  these  gardens.  The  Chase 
house  on  Maryland  Avenue  was  the  one  Mr.  Churchill 
thought  of  as  the  home  of  Lionel  Carvel,  and  he  de- 
scribed the  view  from  upper  windows  of  this  house,  over 
the  Harwood  house,  across  the  way,  to  the  Severn. 

Annapolis,  Baedeker  tells  me,  was  the  first  chartered 
city  in  the  United  States,  having  been  granted  its  charter 
by  Queen  Anne  considerably  more  than  two  centuries 
ago.  It  is,  as  every  little  boy  and  girl  should  know,  the 
capital  of  Maryland,  and  is  built  around  a  little  hill  upon 
the  top  of  which  stands  the  old  State  House  in  which 
W^ashington  surrendered  his  commission  and  in  which 
met  the  first  Constitutional  Convention. 

72 


A  RARE  OLD  TOWN 

In  its  prime  Annapolis  was  nearly  as  large  a  city  as  it 
is  to-day,  but  that  is  not  saying  a  great  deal,  for  at  the 
present  time  it  has  not  so  many  inhabitants  as  Amarillo, 
Texas,  or  Brazil,  Indiana. 

Nevertheless,  the  life  of  Annapolis  in  colonial  days, 
and  in  the  days  which  followed  them,  was  very  brilliant, 
and  we  learn  from  the  diary  of  General  Washington  and 
from  the  writings  of  amazed  Englishmen  and  French- 
men who  visited  the  city  in  its  period  of  glory  that  there 
were  dinners  and  balls  night  after  night,  that  the  theater 
was  encouraged  in  Annapolis  more  than  in  any  other 
city,  that  the  race  meets  compared  with  English  race 
meets  both  as  to  the  quality  of  the  horses  and  of  the 
fashionable  attendance,  that  there  were  sixteen  clubs, 
that  the  women  of  the  city  were  beautiful,  charming,  and 
superbly  dressed,  that  slaves  in  sumptuous  liveries  were 
to  be  seen  about  the  streets,  that  certain  gentlemen  paid 
calls  in  barges  which  were  rowed  by  half  a  dozen  or 
more  blacks,  in  uniform,  and  that  the  perpetual  hospi- 
tality of  the  great  houses  was  gorgeous  and  extravagant. 

The  houses  hint  of  these  things.  If  you  have  seen  the 
best  old  brick  mansions  of  New  England,  and  will 
imagine  them  more  beautifully  proportioned,  set  off  by 
balancing  wings  and  having  infinitely  finer  details  as  to 
doorways,  windows,  porticos,  and  also  as  to  wood  carv- 
ings and  fixtures  within — as,  for  instance,  the  beautiful 
silver  latches  and  hinges  of  the  Chase  house  at  An- 
napolis— you  will  gather  something  of  the  flavor  of  these 
old  Southern  homes.     For  though  such  venerable  man- 

7Z 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

sions  as  the  Chase,  Paca,  Brice,  Hammond,  Ridout,  and 
Bordley  houses,  in  Annapolis,  are  not  without  family 
resemblance  to  the  best  New  England  colonial  houses, 
the  resemblance  is  of  a  kind  to  emphasize  the  differ- 
ences, not  only  between  the  mansions  of  the  North  and 
South,  but  between  the  builders  of  them.  The  contrast 
is  subtle,  but  marked. 

Your  New  England  house,  beautiful  as  it  is,  is  stamped 
with  austere  simplicity.  The  man  who  built  it  was 
probably  a  scholar  but  he  was  almost  certainly  a  Cal- 
vinist.  He  habited  himself  in  black  and  was  served  by 
serving  maids,  instead  of  slaves  in  livery.  If  a  woman 
was  not  flat-chested  and  forlorn,  he  was  prone  to  re- 
gard her  as  the  devil  masquerading  for  the  downfall 
of  man — and  no  doubt  with  some  justice,  too.  Night 
and  morning  he  presided  at  family  prayers,  the  purpose 
of  which  was  to  impress  upon  his  family  and  servants 
that  to  have  a  good  time  was  wicked,  and  that  to  be  gay 
in  this  life  meant  hell-fire  and  damnation  in  the  next. 

Upon  this  pious  person  his  cousin  of  Annapolis  looked 
with  something  not  unlike  contempt;  for  the  latter, 
though  he  too  was  a  scholar,  possessed  the  sort  of 
scholarliness  which  takes  into  account  beauty  and  the 
lore  of  cosmopolitanism.  He  may  have  been  religious 
or  he  may  not  have  been,  but  if  religious  he  demanded 
something  handsome,  something  stylish,  in  his  religion, 
as  he  did  also  in  his  residence,  in  his  wife,  his  sons,  his 
daughters,  his  horses,  coaches,  dinners,  wines,  and 
slaves.     He  did  things  with  a  flourish,  and  was  not  be- 

74 


A  RARE  OLD  TOWN 

set  by  a  perpetual  consciousness  and  fear  of  hell.  He 
approved  of  pretty  women;  he  made  love  to  them;  he 
married  them;  he  was  the  father  of  them.  His  pretty 
daughters  married  men  who  also  admired  pretty  women, 
and  became  the  mothers  of  other  pretty  women,  who 
became,  in  turn,  the  mothers  and  grandmothers  of  the 
pretty  women  of  the  South  to-day. 

Your  old-time  Annapolis  gentleman's  ideas  of  a  re- 
public were  far  indeed  from  those  now  current,  for  he 
understood  perfectly  the  difference  between  a  republic 
and  a  democracy — a  difference  which  is  not  now  so  well 
understood.  He  believed  that  the  people  should  elect 
the  heads  of  the  government,  but  he  also  believed  that 
these  heads  should  be  elected  from  his  own  class,  and 
that,  having  voted,  the  people  should  go  about  their  busi- 
ness, trusting  their  betters  to  run  the  country  as  it  should 
be  run. 

This,  at  least,  is  my  picture  of  the  old  aristocrats  of 
Maryland,  Virginia,  and  South  Carolina,  as  conveyed  to 
me  by  what  I  have  seen  of  their  houses  and  possessions 
and  what  I  have  read  of  their  mode  of  life.  They  were 
the  early  princes  of  the  Republic  and  by  all  odds  its 
most  picturesque  figures. 

Vei-y  different  from  the  spirit  of  appreciation  and 
emulation  shown  by  the  trustees  of  Johns  Hopkins  Uni- 
versity with  regard  to  the  old  house,  Homewood,  in 
Baltimore,  is  that  manifested  in  the  architecture  of  the 
Naval  Academy  at  Annapolis,  where,  in  a  city  fairly 

75 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

flooded  with  examples  of  buildings,  both  beautiful  and 
typically  American,  architectural  hints  were  ignored, 
and  there  were  erected  great  stone  structures  whose 
chief  characteristics  are  size,  solidity,  and  the  look  of 
being  "government  property."  The  main  buildings  of 
the  Academy,  with  the  exception  of  the  chapel,  suggest 
the  sort  of  sublimated  penitentiary  that  Mr.  Thomas 
Alott  Osborne  might,  one  fancies,  construct  under  a 
carte-blanche  authorization,  while  the  chapel,  the  huge 
dome  of  which  is  visible  to  all  the  country  round,  makes 
one  think  of  a  monstrous  wxdding  cake  fashioned  in  the 
form  of  a  building  and  covered  with  white  and  yellow 
frosting  in  ornamental  patterns. 

This  chapel,  one  imagines,  may  have  been  inspired  by 
the  Invalides  in  Paris,  but  of  the  Invalides  it  falls  far 
short.  I  know  nothing  of  the  history  of  the  building, 
but  it  is  easy  to  believe  that  the  original  intention  may 
have  been  to  place  at  the  center  of  it,  under  the  dome,  a 
great  well,  over  the  parapet  of  which  might  have  been 
seen  the  sarcophagus  of  John  Paul  Jones,  in  the  crypt. 
One  prefers  to  think  that  the  architect  had  some  such 
plan;  for  the  crypt,  as  at  present  arranged,  is  hardly 
more  than  a  dark  cellar,  approached  by  what  seems  to 
be  a  flight  of  humble  back  stairs.  To  descend  into  it, 
and  find  there  the  great  marble  coffin  with  its  bronze 
dolphins,  is  not  unlike  going  down  into  the  cellar  of  a 
residence  and  there  discovering  the  family  silver  repos- 
ing in  the  coal-bin. 

In  this  connection  it  is  interesting  to  recall  the  fact 

76 


A  RARE  OLD  TOWN 

that  our  sometimes  piratical  and  always  brilliant  Revolu- 
tionary naval  hero  died  in  Paris,  and  that  until  a  few 
years  ago  his  resting  place  was  unknown.  The  reader 
will  remember  that  while  General  Horace  Porter  was 
American  ambassador  to  France  a  search  was  insti- 
tuted for  the  remains  of  John  Paul  Jones,  the  greater 
part  of  the  work  having  been  conducted  by  Colonel  H. 
Baily  Blanchard,  then  first  secretary  of  the  Embassy, 
assisted  by  the  ambassador  and  Mr.  Henry  Vignaud, 
dean  of  secretaries  of  embassy.  The  resting  place  of 
Jones  was  finally  discovered  in  an  abandoned  cemetery 
in  the  city  of  Paris,  over  which  houses  had  been  built. 
The  body  was  contained  in  a  leaden  casket  and  was  pre- 
served in  alcohol  so  that  identification  was  easily  accom- 
plished by  means  of  a  contemporaneous  likeness  of 
Jones,  and  also  by  means  of  measurements  taken  from 
Houdin's  bust.  The  remains  were  accorded  military 
honors  in  Paris,  and  were  brought  to  this  country  on  a 
war  vessel. 

Why  the  crypt  at  Annapolis  is  as  it  is,  I  do  not  know, 
but  in  my  own  purely  imaginary  picture  of  what  hap- 
pened, I  see  the  architect's  plans  for  a  heroic  display  of 
Jones's  tomb  knocked  on  the  head  by  some  "practical 
man,"  some  worthy  dunce  in  the  Navy  Department, 
whom  I  can  imagine  as  protesting:  "But  no!  We 
can't  take  up  space  at  the  center  of  the  chapel  for  any 
such  purpose.  It  must  be  floored  over  to  make  room  for 
pews.     Otherwise  where  will  the  cadets  sit?" 

So,  although  the  grounds  of  the  academy,  with  their 

77 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

lawns,  and  aged  trees,  and  squirrels,  and  cadets,  are 
charming,  and  although  the  solemn  and  industrious 
Baedeker  assures  me  that  the  academy  is  the  "chief  lion'' 
of  Annapolis,  and  although  I  know  that  it  is  a  great 
school,  and  that  we  need  another  like  it  in  order  properly 
to  officer  our  navy,  I  prefer  the  old  town  with  its  old 
houses,  and  old  streets  bearing  such  reminiscent  names 
as  Hanover,  Prince  George,  and  Duke  of  Gloucester. 

For  certain  slang  expressions  used  by  cadets  I  am  in- 
debted to  a  member  of  the  corps.  From  this  admiral- 
to-be  I  learn  that  a  "bird"'  or  "wazzo"  is  a  man  or  boy; 
that  a  "pap  sheet"  is  a  report  covering  delinquencies, 
and  that  to  "hit  the  pap"  is  to  be  reported  for  delin- 
quency; that  "steam"  is  marine  engineering,  and  to  be 
"bilged  for  juice"  is  to  fail  in  examinations  in  electrical 
engineering — to  get  an  "unsat,""  or  unsatisfactory  mark, 
or  even  a  "zip"  or  "swabo,"  which  is  a  zero.  Cadets  do 
not  escort  girls  to  dances,  but  "drag"  them;  a  girl  is  a 
"drag,"  and  a  "heavy  drag"  or  "brick"  is  an  unattractive 
girl  who  must  be  taken  to  a  dance.  A  "sleuth"  or 
"jimmylegs"  is  a  night  w^atchman,  and  to  be  "ragged"  is 
to  be  caught.  Mess-hall  waiters  are  sometimes  called 
"mokes,"  while  at  other  times  the  names  of  certain  ex- 
alted dignitaries  of  the  Navy  Department,  or  of  the 
academy,  are  applied  to  them. 

I  shall  never  cease  to  regret  that  dread  of  the  cold  kept 
us  from  seeing  ancient  Whitehall,  a  few  miles  from  An- 
napolis, which  was  the  residence  of  Governor  Horatio 

78 


A  RARE  OLD  TOWN 

Sharpe,  and  is  one  of  the  finest  of  historic  American 
homes;  nor  shall  I,  on  the  other  hand,  ever  cease  to 
rejoice  that,  in  spite  of  cold  we  did,  upon  another  day, 
visit  Hampton,  the  rare  old  mansion  of  the  Ridgelys,  of 
Maryland,  which  stands  amid  its  own  five  thousand  acres 
some  dozen  miles  or  so  to  the  north  of  Baltimore.  The 
Ridgelys  were,  it  appears,  the  great  Protestant  land 
barons  of  this  region  as  the  Carrolls  were  the  great 
Catholics,  and,  like  the  Carrolls,  they  remain  to-day  the 
proprietors  of  a  vast  estate  and  an  incomparable  house. 


79 


CHAPTER  VTTT 
WE  MEET  THE  HAMPTON  GHOST 

There  's  nothing  ill  can  dwell  in  such  a  temple ; 
If  the  ill  spirit  have  so  fair  a  house, 
Good  things  will  strive  to  dwell  with  't. 

— The  Tempest. 

HAMPTON  is  probably  the  largest  of  Maryland's 
old  mansions,  and  the  beauty  of  it  is  more 
theatrical  than  the  beauty  of  Doughoregan 
Alanor;  for  although  the  latter  is  the  older  of  the  two, 
the  former  is  not  only  spectacular  by  reason  of  its 
spaciousness,  the  delicacy  of  its  architectural  details,  and 
the  splendor  of  its  dreamlike  terraced  gardens,  but  also 
for  a  look  of  beautiful,  dignified,  yet  somehow  tragic 
age — a  look  which  makes  one  think  of  a  wonderful  old 
lady;  a  belle  of  the  days  of  minuets  and  powdered  wngs 
and  patches ;  a  woman  no  less  w^onderful  in  her  declining 
years  than  in  her  youth,  but  wonderful  in  another  way ; 
a  proud  old  aristocrat,  erect  and  spirited  to  the  last; 
her  bedchamber  a  storehouse  of  ivory  lace  and  ancient 
jewelry,  her  memory  a  storehouse  of  recollections,  like 
chapters  from  romantic  novels  of  the  days  when  all  men 
were  gallant,  and  all  w^omen  beautiful:  recollections  of 
journeys  made  in  the  old  coach,  w^hich  is  still  in  the 
stable,  though  its  outriders  have  been  buried  in  the 
slaves'  burying  ground  these  many  years;  recollections 

80 


1  began  to  realize  that  there  was  no  one  coming;  that  no  one  had  opened  the  door; 
that  it  had  begun  to  swing  immediately  upon  my  saying  the  word  "ghosts" 


WE  MEET  THE  HAMPTON  GHOST 

of  the  opening  of  Hampton,  when,  as  the  story  goes, 
gay  Captain  Charles  Ridgely,  builder  of  the  house,  held  a 
card  party  in  the  attic  to  celebrate  the  event,  while  his 
wife,  Rebecca  Dorsey  Ridgely,  a  lady  of  religious  turn, 
marked  the  occasion  simultaneously  with  a  prayer-meet- 
ing in  the  drawing  room;  of  the  ball  given  by  the 
Ridgelys  in  honor  of  Charles  Carroll's  granddaughters, 
the  exquisite  Caton  sisters;  of  hunt  meets  here,  long, 
long  ago,  and  hunt  balls  which  succeeded  them;  of 
breakneck  rides ;  of  love-making  in  that  garden  peopled 
with  the  ghosts  of  more  than  a  century  of  lovers ;  of  duels 
fought  at  dawn.  Of  such  vague,  thrilling  tales  the  old 
house  seems  to  whisper. 

Never,  from  the  moment  we  turned  into  the  tree-lined 
avenue,  leading  to  Hampton,  from  the  moment  when  I 
saw  the  fox  hounds  rise  resentfully  out  of  beds  which 
they  had  dug  in  drifts  of  oak  leaves  in  the  drive,  from 
the  moment  when  I  stood  beneath  the  stately  portico  and 
heard  the  bars  of  the  shuttered  doors  being  flung  back 
for  our  admittance — never,  from  my  first  glimpse  of  the 
place,  have  I  been  able  to  dispel  the  sense  of  unreality  I 
felt  while  there,  and  which  makes  me  feel,  now,  that 
Hampton  is  not  a  house  that  I  have  seen,  but  one  built 
by  my  imagination  in  the  course  of  a  particularly  charm- 
ing and  convincing  dream. 

Stained  glass  windows  bearing  the  Ridgely  coat  of 
arms  flank  the  front  doorway,  and  likewise  the  opposing 
doorway  at  the  end  of  the  enormous  hall  upon  which  one 
enters,  and  the  light  from  these  windows  gives  the  hall 

8i 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

a  subdued  yet  glowing  illumination,  so  that  there  is 
something-  spectral  about  the  old  chairs  and  the  old  por- 
traits with  which  the  walls  are  solidly  covered.  There 
are  portraits  here  by  Gilbert  Stuart  and  other  distin- 
guished painters  of  times  gone  by,  and  J  particularly 
remember  one  large  canvas  showing  a  beautiful  young 
woman  in  evening  dress,  her  hair  hanging  in  curls  be- 
side her  cheeks,  her  tapering  fingers  touching  the  strings 
of  a  harp.  She  was  young  then ;  yet  the  portrait  is  that 
of  the  great-grandmother,  or  great-great-grandmother, 
of  present  Ridgleys,  and  she  has  lain  long  in  the  brick- 
walled  family  burying  ground  below  the  garden.  But 
there  beneath  the  portrait  stands  the  harp  on  which  she 
played. 

One  might  tell  endlessly  of  paneling,  of  the  delicate 
carving  of  mantels  and  overmantels,  of  chairs,  tables, 
desks,  and  sofas  of  Chippendale,  Hepplewhite,  Phyfe 
and  Sheraton,  yet  giving  such  an  inventory  one  might 
fail  utterly  to  suggest  the  feeling  of  that  great  house, 
with  its  sense  of  homelike  emptiness,  its  wealth  of  old 
furniture  and  portraits,  blending  together,  in  the  dim 
light  of  a  late  October  afternoon,  to  form  shadowy 
backgrounds  for  autumnal  reverie,  or  for  silent,  solitary 
listening — listening  to  the  tales  told  by  the  soughing 
wnnd  outside,  to  the  whisper  of  embers  in  the  fireplace, 
the  slow^  somber  tick  of  the  tall  clock  telling  of  ages  past 
and  passing,  the  ghostly  murmur  of  the  old  house  talk- 
ing softly  to  itself. 

From  the  windows  of  the  great  dining-room  one  looks 

82 


WE  MEET  THE  HAMPTON  GHOST 

away  toward  Hampton  Gate,  a  favorite  meeting  place 
for  the  Elkridge  Hunt,  or,  at  another  angle,  toward  the 
stables  w^here  the  hunters  are  kept,  the  old  slave  cabins, 
and  the  overseer's  house,  with  its  bell  tower — a  house 
nearly  two  hundred  years  old.  But  the  library  is  per- 
haps the  more  natural  resting  place  for  the  guest,  and 
it  looks  out  over  the  garden,  with  its  enormous  descend- 
ing terraces,  its  geometrical  walks  and  steps,  its  beauti- 
ful old  trees,  and  arbors  of  ancient  box.  Such  terraces 
as  these  w^ere  never  built  by  paid  labor. 

We  were  given  tea  in  the  library,  our  hostess  at  this 
function  being  a  young  lady  of  five  or  six  years — a 
granddaughter  of  Captain  John  Ridgely,  present  master 
of  Hampton — who,  with  her  pink  cheeks,  her  serious, 
eyes  and  demeanor,  looked  like  a  canvas  by  Sir  Joshua 
come  to  life,  as  she  sat  in  a  large  chair  and  ate  a  large 
red  apple. 

Nor  did  Bryan,  Captain  Ridgely's  negro  butler,  fit 
less  admirably  into  the  pervasive  atmosphere  of  fiction 
which  enveloped  the  place.  In  the  absence  of  his  master, 
Bryan  did  the  honors  of  the  old  house  with  a  style  which 
was  not  "put  on,"  because  it  did  not  have  to  be  put  on — 
nature  and  a  good  bringing-up  having  supplied  all  needs 
in  this  respect.  There  was  about  him  none  of  that 
affectation  of  being  a  graven  image,  which  one  so  often 
notices  in  white  butlers  and  footmen  imported  from  Eu- 
rope by  rich  Americans,  and  which,  of  all  shams,  is  one 
of  the  most  false  and  absurd,  as  carried  out  on  both 
sides — for  we  pretend  to  think  these  functionaries  the 

83 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

deft  mechanisms,  incapable  of  thought,  that  they  pre- 
tend to  be ;  yet  all  the  time  we  know — and  they  know  we 
know — that  they  see  and  hear  and  think  as  we  do,  and 
that,  moreover,  they  are  often  enough  observant  cynics 
whose  elaborate  gentility  is  assumed  for  hire,  like  the 
signboard  of  a  sandwich  man. 

Bryan  was  without  these  artificial  graces.  His  man- 
ner, in  showing  us  the  house,  in  telling  us  about  the  vari- 
ous portraits,  indicated  some  true  appreciation  of  the 
place  and  of  its  contents;  and  the  air  he  wore  of  natural 
dignity  and  courtesy — of  being  at  once  acting-host  and 
servitor — constituted  as  graceful  a  performance  in  a  not 
altogether  easy  role  as  I  have  ever  seen,  and  satisfied  me, 
once  for  all,  as  to  the  verity  of  legends  concerning  the 
admirable  qualities  of  old-time  negro  servants  in  the 
South. 

After  tea,  when  fading  twilight  had  deepened  the 
shadows  in  the  house,  we  went  up  the  stairway,  past  the 
landing  with  its  window  containing  the  armorial  bear- 
ings of  the  family  in  stained  glass,  and,  achieving  the 
upper  hall,  crossed  to  a  great  bedchamber,  the  principal 
guest  room,  and  paused  just  inside  the  door. 

And  now,  because  of  what  I  am  about  to  relate,  I 
shall  give  the  names  of  those  who  were  present.  We 
were:  Dr.  Murray  P.  Brush,  A.B.,  Ph.D.,  acting  Dean 
of  Johns  Hopkins  University;  Dr.  John  McF.  Bergland 
of  Baltimore;  my  companion,  Wallace  Morgan,  illus- 
trator ;  and  myself. 

The  light  had,  by  this  time,  melted  to  a  mere  faint 

84 


WE  MEET  THE  HAMPTON  GHOST 

grayness  sifting  like  mist  through  the  many  oblong 
panes  of  several  large  windows.  Nevertheless  I  could 
discern  that  it  was  a  spacious  room,  and  from  the 
color  of  it  and  certain  shadowy  lines  upon  the  walls,  I 
judged  that  it  was  paneled  to  the  ceiling  in  white-painted 
wood.  I  am  under  the  impression  that  it  contained  a 
fireplace,  and  that  the  great  four-post  bed,  standing  to 
the  right  of  the  doorway,  was  placed  upon  a  low  plat- 
form, a  step  or  two  above  the  floor — though  of  this  I 
am  not  quite  certain,  the  bulk  of  the  bed  and  the  dim 
light  having,  perhaps,  deceived  me.  The  rest  of  the 
furniture  in  the  room  was  dark  in  color,  and  massed  in 
heavy  vague  spots  against  the  lighter  background  of 
the  walls. 

Directly  before  the  door,  at  about  the  center  of  the 
wall  against  which  it  was  backed,  stood  something  which 
loomed  tall  and  dark,  and  which  I  took  to  be  either  a 
gigantic  clothespress  or  a  closet  built  into  the  room. 
Looking  past  the  front  of  this  obstruction,  I  saw  one  of 
the  windows;  the  piece  of  furniture  was  therefore  ex- 
hibited sidewise,  in  silhouette. 

I  do  not  think  that  I  had  definitely  thought  of  ghost 
stories  before,  and  I  know  that  ghosts  had  not  been 
spoken  of,  but  as  I  looked  into  this  room,  and  reflected 
on  the  long  series  of  persons  who  had  occupied  it,  and  on 
where  they  were  now,  and  on  all  the  stories  that  the 
room  must  have  heard,  there  entered  my  mind  thoughts 
of  the  supernatural. 

Having  taken  a  step  or  two  into  the  room,  I  was 

8S 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

a  little  in  advance  of  my  three  friends,  and  as  these 
fancies  came  strongly  to  me,  I  spoke  over  my  shoulder 
to  one  of  them,  who  was  at  my  right  and  a  little  behind 
me,  saying,  half  playfully: 

"There  ought  to  be  ghosts  in  a  room  like  this." 

Hardly  had  I  spoken  when  without  a  sound,  and 
swinging  very  slowly,  the  door  of  the  large  piece  of 
furniture  before  me  gently  opened.  My  first  idea  was 
that  the  thing  must  be  a  closet,  built  against  the  wall, 
with  a  door  at  the  back  opening  on  a  passageway,  or 
into  the  next  room,  and  that  the  little  girl  whom  we  had 
met  downstairs  had  opened  it  from  the  other  side  and 
was  coming  in. 

I  fully  expected  to  see  her  enter.  But  she  did  not 
enter,  for,  as  I  learned  presently,  she  was  in  the  nursery 
at  the  time. 

After  waiting  for  an  instant  to  see  who  was  coming, 
I  began  to  realize  that  there  was  no  one  coming ;  that  no 
one  had  opened  the  door ;  that,  like  an  actor  picking  up  a 
cue,  the  door  had  begun  to  swing  immediately  upon  my 
saying  the  w^ord  "ghosts." 

The  appropriateness  of  the  coincidence  was  striking. 
I  turned  quickly  to  my  friends,  who  were  in  conversation 
behind  me,  and  asked : 

"Speaking  of  ghosts — did  you  see  that  door  open?" 

It  is  my  recollection  that  none  of  them  had  seen  it. 
Certainly  not  more  than  one  of  them  had,  for  T  remem- 
ber my  feeling  of  disappointment  that  any  one  present 

86 


WE  MEET  THE  HAMPTON  GHOST 

should  have  missed  so  strange  a  circumstance.  Some 
one  may  have  asked  what  I  had  seen;  at  all  events  I 
was  full  of  the  idea,  and,  indicating  the  open  door,  I 
began  to  tell  what  I  had  seen,  when — exactly  as  though 
the  thing  were  done  deliberately  to  circumstantiate  my 
story — with  the  slow,  steady  movement  of  a  heavy  door 
pushed  by  a  feeble  hand,  the  other  portal  of  the  huge 
cabinet  swung  open. 

This  time  all  four  of  us  were  looking. 

Presently,  as  we  moved  across  the  wide  hall  to  go 
downstairs  again,  Bryan  came  from  one  of  the  other 
chambers,  w^hither,  I  think,  he  had  carried  the  young 
lady's  supper  on  a  tray. 

"Are  there  supposed  to  be  any  ghosts  in  this  house?"  I 
asked  him. 

Bryan  showed  his  white  teeth  in  the  semi-darkness. 
\\'hether  he  believed  in  ghosts  or  not,  evidently  he  did 
not  fear  them. 

"Yes,  sir,"  he  said.  "We  're  supposed  to  have  a  ghost 
here." 

"Where?" 

"In  that  room  over  there,"  he  answered,  indicating  the 
bedroom  from  which  we  had  come. 

We  listened  attentively  to  Bryan  while  he  told  how 
the  daughter  of  Governor  Swan  had  come  to  attend  a 
ball  at  Hampton,  and  how  she  had  died  in  the  four-post 
bed  in  that  old  shadowy  guest  room,  and  of  how,  since 
then,  she  had  been  seen  from  time  to  time. 

87 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

"They  's  several  people  say  they  saw  her,"  he  finished. 
"She  comes  out  and  combs  her  hair  in  front  of  the  long 
mirror." 

However,  as  we  drove  back  to  Baltimore  that  eve- 
ning, we  repeatedly  assured  one  another  that  we  did  not 
believe  in  ghosts. 


88 


CHAPTER  IX 
ARE  WE  STANDARDIZED? 

ALMOST  all  modern  European  critics  of  the 
United  States  agree  in  complaining  that  our  tele- 
phones and  sleeping  cars  are  objectionable,  and 
that  we  are  ''standardized"  in  everything.  Their 
criticism  of  the  telephone  seems  to  be  that  the  state  of 
perfection  to  which  it  has  been  brought  in  this  country 
causes  it  to  be  widely  used,  while  their  disapproval  of 
our  sleeping  cars  is  invariably  based  on  the  assumption 
that  they  have  no  compartments — which  is  not  the  fact, 
since  most  of  the  great  transcontinental  railroads  do  run 
compartment  cars,  and  much  better  ones  than  the  best 
zvagons  lits,  and  since,  also,  all  our  sleeping  cars  have 
drawing-rooms  which  are  incomparably  better  than  the 
most  comfortable  European  compartments. 

The  charge  of  standardization  will,  however,  bear 
a  little  thought.  It  is  true  that  most  American  cities 
have  a  general  family  resemblance — that  a  business 
street  in  Atlanta  or  Memphis  looks  much  like  a  busi- 
ness street  in  Pittsburgh,  Cleveland,  Buffalo,  Milwaukee, 
St.  Paul,  Kansas  City,  or  St.  Louis — and  that  much  the 
same  thing  may  be  said  of  residence  streets.  Houses 
and  office  buildings  in  one  city  are  likely  to  resemble 

89 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

those  of  corresponding  grade  in  another;  the  men  who 
Hve  in  the  houses  and  go  daily  to  the  offices  are  also 
similar;  so  are  the  trolley  cars  in  which  they  journey 
to  and  fro;  still  more  so  the  Fords  which  many  of  them 
use ;  the  clothing  of  one  man  is  like  that  of  another,  and 
all  have  similar  conventions  concerning  the  date  at  which 
— without  regard  to  temperature — straw  hats  should  be 
discarded.  Their  womenfolk,  also,  are  more  or  less 
alike,  as  are  the  department  stores  in  which  they  shop 
and  the  dresses  they  buy.  And  the  same  is  true  of  their 
children,  the  costumes  of  those  children,  and  the  schools 
they  attend. 

Every  American  city  has  social  groups  corresponding 
to  similar  groups  in  other  cities.  There  is  always  the 
small,  affluent  group,  made  up  of  people  who  keep  butlers 
and  several  automobiles,  and  who  travel  extensively. 
In  this  group  there  are  always  some  snobs:  ladies  who 
give  much  time  to  societies  founded  on  ancestry,  and 
have  a  Junkerish  feeling  about  ''social  leadership." 

Every  city  has  also  its  "fast"  group:  people  who 
consider  themselves  ''unconventional,"  who  drink  more 
than  is  good  for  them,  and  make  much  noise.  Some 
members  of  this  group  may  belong  to  the  first  group, 
as  well,  but  in  the  fast  group  they  have  a  follow- 
ing of  well-dressed  hangers-on:  unmarried  men  and 
women,  youngish  rather  than  young,  who,  with  little 
money,  yet  manage  to  dress  well  and  to  be  seen  eating 
and  drinking  and  dancing  in  public  places.  There  is 
usually  to  be  found  in  this  group  a  hectic  widow  or  two 

90 


ARE  WE  STANDARDIZED? 

— be  it  grass  or  sod — and  a  few  pretty  girls  who,  hav- 
ing been  given  too  much  freedom  at  eighteen,  begin 
to  wonder,  at  twenty-eight,  why,  though  they  have  al- 
ways been  "good  fellows,"  none  of  the  dozens  of  men 
who  take  them  about  have  married  them.  To  this 
aggregation  drift  also  those  restless  husbands  and  wives 
whose  glances  rove  hopefully  away  from  their  mates,  a 
few  well-bred  drunkards,  and  a  few  men  and  women 
who  are  trying  to  forget  things  they  cannot  forget. 

Then  there  is  always  the  young  married  group — a 
nice  group  for  the  most  part — living  in  comfortable  new 
houses  or  apartments,  and  keeping,  usually,  both  a  small 
automobile  and  a  baby  carriage.  They  go  to  the  Coun- 
try Club  on  Saturday  nights,  leave  their  motors  stand- 
ing in  the  drive,  eat  a  lukewarm  supper  that  tastes  like 
papier-mache,  and  dance  themselves  to  wiltedness. 

Another  group  is  entirely  masculine,  being  made  up 
of  husbands  of  various  ages,  their  mutual  bond  being 
the  downtown  club  to  which  they  go  daily,  and  in  which 
the  subjects  discussed  are  politics,  golf,  and  the  evils  of 
prohibition.  To  this  group  always  belong  the  black- 
sheep  husbands  who,  after  taking  their  wives  to  the 
Country  Club,  disappear  and  remain  away  until  they  are 
sent  for  because  it  is  time  to  go  home,  when  they  come 
back  shamefaced  and  scented  with  Scotch. 

Every  American  city  has  also  what  Don  Marquis 
calls  its  "little  group  of  serious  thinkers" — women,  most 
of  them — possessed  of  an  ardent  desire  to  ''keep  abreast 
of  the  times."     These  women  belong  to  clubs  and  lit- 

91 


AAIERICAN  ADVENTURES 

erary  societies  which  are  more  serious  than  war.  They 
are  always  reading  papers  or  attending  lectures,  and 
at  these  lectures  they  get  a  strange  assortment  of 
"cultural"  information  and  misinformation,  delivered 
with  ghastly  assurance  by  heterogeneous  gentlemen  in 
cutaway  coats,  who  go  about  and  spout  for  pay.  If  you 
meet  these  ladies,  and  they  suspect  you  of  being  infested 
by  the  germs  of  "culture,"  they  will  open  fire  on  you 
with  a  "thought,"  about  which  you  may  detect  a  curious 
ghostly  fragrance,  as  of  Alfred  Noyes's  lecture,  last 
week,  or  of  "the  New  Republic"  or  the  "Literary  Di- 
gest." The  most  "liberal"  of  them  may  even  take  "The 
Masses,"  precisely  as  people  rather  like  them  used  to 
take  "The  Philistine,"  a  generation  or  two  ago.  Among 
the  members  of  this  group  are  the  women  who  work 
violently  for  suffrage — something  in  which  T  personally 
believe,  but  which,  merely  because  I  believe  in  it,  T  do 
not  necessarily  like  to  take  in  my  coft'ee  as  a  substitute 
for  sugar,  on  my  bread  as  a  substitute  for  butter,  and  in 
my  ear  as  a  substitute  for  pleasant  general  conversation. 
I  do  not  wish  to  seem  to  speak  disparagingly  of 
women  of  this  type,  for  they  are  doing  good,  and  they 
will  do  more  good  when  they  have  become  more  accus- 
tomed to  possessing  minds.  Having  but  recently  dis- 
covered their  minds,  they  are  playing  with  them  enthusi- 
astically, like  children  who  have  just  discovered  their 
new  toys  on  Christmas  morning.  Tt  is  delightful  to 
watch  them.  Tt  is  diverting  to  have  them  pop  ideas  at 
you  with  that  bright-eyed,  efficient,  assertive  look  which 

92 


ARE  WE  STANDARDIZED? 

seems  to  say:  "See!  I  am  a  liberal  woman — a  woman 
uf  the  new  type.  I  meet  men  on  their  own  ground.  Do 
you  wish  to  talk  of  birth  control,  social  hygiene,  and  sex 
attraction?  Or  shall  we  reverse  the  order?  Or  shall  I 
show  you  how  much  I  know  about  Brieux,  and  house- 
hold exronomics,  and  Ellen  Key,  and  eugenics,  and  George 
Meredith,  and  post-impressionism,  and  "Roberts'  Rules 
of  Order,"  and  theosophy,  and  conditions  in  the  Six- 
teenth Ward?" 

When  one  thinks  of  these  city  groups,  and  of  mail- 
order houses,  and  Fords,  one  may  begin  to  fear  it  is 
indeed  true  that  we  are  becoming  standardized,  but 
when  one  lets  one's  mind  drift  over  the  country  as 
the  eye  drifts  over  a  map;  when  one  thinks  of  the 
quantities  of  modest,  thoughtful,  gentle,  generous,  in- 
telligent, sound  American  families  which  are  to  be  found 
in  every  city  and  every  town,  and  thinks  again,  in  a 
twinkling,  of  sheriffs  and  mining-camp  policemen  in 
the  Far  West,  of  boys  going  to  Harvard,  and  other 
boys  going  to  the  University  of  Kansas,  others  to  the 
old  Southern  universities,  so  rich  in  tradition,  and  still 
others  to  Annapolis  or  West  Point ;  when  one  thinks  of 
the  snow  glittering  on  the  Rocky  Mountain  wall,  back  of 
Denver;  of  sleepy  little  towns  drowsing  in  the  sun  beside 
the  Mississippi ;  of  Charles  W.  Eliot  of  Cambridge,  and 
Hy  Gill  of  Seattle;  of  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  of  New  York 
and  Tom  Watson  of  Georgia ;  of  General  Leonard  Wood 
and  Colonel  William  Jennings  Bryan;  of  ex-slaves  liv- 
ing in  their  cabins  behind  Virginia  manor  houses,  and 

93 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Filipino  and  Kanaka  fishermen  living  in  villages  built 
on  stilts  beside  the  bayous  below  New  Orleans;  of  the 
dry  salt  desert  of  Utah,  and  two  great  rivers  meeting 
between  green  rocky  hills,  at  Harper's  Ferry;  of  men 
working  in  offices  at  the  top  of  the  W'oolworth  Building 
in  New  York,  and  other  men  working  thousands  of  feet 
below  the  ground,  in  the  copper  mines  of  Butte  and  the 
iron  and  coal  mines  of  Birmingham — when  one  thinks 
of  these  things  one  quickly  ceases  to  fear  that  the  United 
States  is  standardized,  and  instead  begins  to  fear  that 
few  Americans  will  ever  know  the  varied  wonder  of 
their  country,  and  the  varied  character  of  its  inhabit- 
ants, their  problems,  hopes,  and  views. 

If  I  lived  somewhere  in  the  region  of  Boston,  New 
York,  or  Philadelphia  and  wished  quickly  to  learn 
whether  the  country  were  really  standardized  or  not,  I 
should  get  into  my  automobile — or  into  some  one  else's 
— and  take  an  autumn  tour  through  Baltimore,  past 
Doughoregan  Manor,  some  miles  to  the  west  of  Balti- 
more, on  to  Frederick,  Maryland  (where  they  dispute, 
quite  justly,  I  believe,  the  truth  of  the  Barbara  Frietchie 
legend),  and  thence  "over  the  mountain  wall"  and  down 
into  the  northeastern  corner  of  the  most  irregularly 
shaped  State  in  the  Union,  \\'est  A^irginia.  I  should 
strike  for  Harper's  Ferry,  and  from  there  run  to 
Charles  Town,  a  few  miles  distant  (where  John  Brown 
was  tried  and  executed  for  the  Harper's  Ferry  raid), 
and  after  circulating  about  that  corner  of  the  State,  I 
should  go  down  into  Virginia  by  the  good  highway 

94 


ARE  WE  STANDARDIZED? 

which  leads  from  Charles  Town  to  Berryville — "Bur'- 
v'l,"   they   pronounce   it — and   to   "Winchester   twenty 
miles  away"  (where  they  say  that  Sheridan's  Ride  was 
nothing  to  make  such  a  lot  of  talk  about!),  and  then 
back,  by  way  of  Berryville,  and  over  the  Blue  Ridge 
Mountains  into  the  great  fox-hunting  counties  of  Vir- 
ginia:  Clark,  Loudon,  and  Fauquier.     Here  I  should 
see  a  hunt  meet  or  a  race  meet.     There  are  many  other 
places  to  which  I  might  go  after  that,  but  as  I  meant  only 
to  suggest  an  easy  little  tour,  I  shall  stop  at  this  point, 
contenting  myself  with  saying  that  not  far  to  the  south 
is  Charlottesville,  where  Jefferson  built  that  most  beau- 
tiful of  all  universities,  the  University  of  Virginia,  and 
his  wonderful  house  Monticello;  that  Staunton   (pro- 
nounced as  without  the  "u"),  where  Woodrow  Wilson 
was  born,  lies  west  of  Charlottesville,  while  Fredericks- 
burg,  where   Washington's   mother   lived,   lies   to   the 
northeast. 

Some  such  trip  as  this  I  should  take  instead  of  a  con- 
ventional New  England  tour.  And  before  starting  I 
should  buy  a  copy  of  Louise  Closser  Hale's  delightful 
book,  "Into  the  Old  Dominion." 

One  beauty  of  the  trip  that  I  suggest  is  that  it  is  n't  all 
the  same.  In  one  place  3^ou  get  a  fair  country  hotel, 
in  another  an  inn,  and  somewhere  along  the  way  you 
may  have  to  spend  a  night  in  a  private  house.  Also, 
though  the  roads  through  Maryland,  and  the  part  of 
West  Virginia  I  speak  of,  are  generally  good,  my  ex- 
perience of  Virginia  roads,  especially  through  the  moun- 

95 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

tains,  leads  me  to  conclude  that  in  respect  to  high- 
ways Virginia  remains  a  backward  State.  But  who 
wants  to  ride  always  over  oiled  roads,  always  to  hotels 
with  marble  lobbies,  or  big  white  porches  full  of  hungry- 
eyed  young  women,  and  old  ladies,  knitting?  Only  the 
standardized  tourist.     And  I  am  not  addressing  him. 

I  am  talking  to  the  motorist  who  is  not  ossified  in 
habit,  who  has  a  love  of  strangeness  and  the  pictur- 
esque— not  only  in  scenery  but  in  houses  and  people  and 
the  kind  of  life  those  people  lead.  For  it  is  quite  true 
that,  as  Professor  Roland  C.  Usher  said  in  his  'Tan 
Americanism,"  "the  information  in  New  York  about 
Buenos  Aires  is  more  extended,  accurate,  and  con- 
temporaneous than  the  notions  in  Maine  about  Ala- 
bama. .  .  .  Isolation  is  more  a  matter  of  time  than  of 
space,  and  common  interests  are  due  to  the  ease  of  trans- 
portation and  communication  more  often  than  geo- 
graphical location." 


96 


CHAPTER  X. 
HARPER'S  FERRY  AND  JOHN  BROWN 

Mad  Old  Brown, 
Osawatomie  Brown, 
With  his  eighteen  other  crazy  men,  went  in  and  took  the  town. 

— Edmund  Clarence  Stedman. 

THREE  States  meet  at  Harper's  Ferry,  and  the 
line  dividing  two  of  them  is  indicated  where  it 
crosses  the  station  platform.  If  you  alight  at 
the  rear  end  of  the  train,  you  are  in  Maryland;  at  the 
front,  you  are  in  West  Virginia.  This  I  like.  I  have 
always  liked  important  but  invisible  boundaries — 
boundaries  of  states  or,  better  yet,  of  countries.  When 
I  cross  them  I  am  disposed  to  step  high,  as  though  not 
to  trip  upon  them,  and  then  to  pause  with  one  foot  in 
one  land  and  one  in  another,  trying  to  imagine  that  I 
feel  the  division  running  through  my  body. 

Harper's  Ferry  is  an  entrancing  old  town;  a  drowsy 
place,  piled  up  beautifully,  yet  carelessly,  upon  ter- 
raced roads  clinging  to  steep  hills,  which  slope  on  one 
side  to  the  Potomac,  on  the  other  to  the  Shenandoah, 
and  come  to  a  point,  like  the  prow  of  a  great  ship,  at  the 
confluence  of  the  two. 

There  is  something  foreign  in  the  appearance  of  the 
place.     Many  times,  as  I  looked  at  old  stone  houses, 

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AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

a  story  or  two  high  on  one  side,  three  or  four  stories  on 
the  other,  seeming  to  set  their  claws  into  the  cHffs  and 
cling  there  for  dear  life,  1  thought  of  houses  in  Capri 
and  Amalfi,  and  in  some  towns  in  France;  and  again 
there  were  low  cottages  built  of  blocks  of  shale  covered 
with  a  thin  veneer  of  white  plaster  showing  the  outlines 
of  the  stones  beneath,  which,  squatting  down  amid  their 
trees  and  flowers,  resembled  peasant  cottages  in  Nor- 
mandy or  Brittany,  or  in  Ireland. 

It  is  a  town  in  which  to  ramble  for  an  hour,  uphill, 
down  and  around;  stopping  now  to  delight  in  a  crum- 
bling stone  wall,  tied  together  with  Kenilworth  ivy; 
now  to  w^atch  a  woman  making  apple  butter  in  a 
great  iron  pot;  now  to  see  an  old  negro  clamber  slowly 
into  his  rickety  wagon,  take  up  the  rope  reins,  and  start 
his  skinny  horse  with  the  surprising  words:  "Come 
hither !" ;  now  to  look  at  an  old  tangled  garden,  terraced 
rudely  up  a  hillside ;  now  to  read  the  sign,  on  a  telegraph 
pole  in  the  village,  bearing  the  frank  threat:  "If  you 
Hitch  your  Horses  Here  they  will  be  Turned  Loose." 
Now  you  will  come  upon  a  terraced  road,  at  one  side  of 
which  stands  an  old  house  draped  over  the  rocks  in  such 
a  way  as  to  provide  entrance  from  the  ground  level,  on 
any  one  of  three  stories ;  or  an  unexpected  view  down  a 
steep  roadway,  or  over  ancient  moss-grown  housetops 
to  where,  as  an  old  book  I  found  there  puts  it,  "between 
two  ramparts,  in  a  gorge  of  savage  grandeur,  the  lordly 
Potomac  takes  to  his  embrace  the  beautiful  Shenan- 
doah." 

98 


HARPER'S  FERRY  AND  JOHN  BROWN 

The  liaison  between  the  rivers,  described  in  this 
Rabelaisian  manner  by  the  author  of  "The  Annals  of 
Harper's  Ferry,"  has  been  going  on  for  a  long  time  with 
all  the  brazen  publicity  of  a  love  scene  on  a  park  bench. 
I  recommend  the  matter  to  the  attention  of  the  Society 
for  the  Suppression  of  Vice,  which  once  took  action 
to  prohibit  a  novel  by  Mr.  Theodore  Dreiser.  A  great 
many  people  wish  to  read  Mr.  Dreiser's  books  yet  no  one 
has  to  read  them  if  he  does  not  want  to.  But  it  is  a 
different  matter  with  these  rivers.  Sensitive  citizens  of 
Harper's  Ferry  and  pure-minded  passengers  on  the 
Baltimore  &  Ohio  Railroad  are  obliged  daily  to  witness 
what  is  going  on. 

Before  the  days  of  the  Society  for  the  Suppression  of 
Vice,  and  of  the  late  Anthony  Comstock,  when  we  had 
no  one  to  make  it  clear  to  us  exactly  what  was  shock- 
ing, little  was  thought  of  the  public  scandal  between 
the  Potomac  and  the  Shenandoah.  Thomas  Jeft'erson 
seems  to  have  rather  liked  it ;  there  is  a  point  above  the 
town,  known  as  Jefferson's  Rock,  at  which,  it  is  said, 
the  author  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  stood 
and  uttered  a  sentiment  about  the  spectacle.  Every- 
body in  Harper's  Ferry  agrees  that  Jeft'erson  stood  at 
Jefferson's  Rock  and  said  something  appropriate,  and 
any  one  of  them  will  try  to  tell  you  what  he  said,  but 
each  version  will  be  different. 

A  young  lady  told  me  that  he  said:  "This  view  is 
worth  a  trip  across  the  Atlantic  Ocean." 

A  young  man  in  a  blue  felt  hat  of  the  fried-egg 

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AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

variety  said  that  Jefferson  declared,  with  his  well-known 
simplicity:     "This  is  the  grandest  view  1  ever  seen." 

An  old  man  who  had  to  go  through  the  tobacco 
chewer's  pre-conversational  rite  before  replying  to  my 
question  gave  it  as:  "Pfst! — They  ain't  nothin'  in 
Europe  ner  Switzerland  ner  nowheres  else,  1  reckon',  to 
beat  this-here  scenery." 

The  man  at  the  drug  store  quoted  differently  allei^ing 
the  saying  to  have  been :  ''Europe  has  nothing  on  this"  : 
whereas  the  livery  stable  man's  version  was :  "This  has 
that  famous  German  river — the  Rhine  River  don't  they 
call  it? — skinned  to  death." 

Whatever  Jefferson's  remark  was,  there  has  been 
added  to  the  spectacle  at  Harper's  Ferry,  since  his  daw 
a  new  feature,  which,  could  he  have  but  seen  it,  must 
have  struck  him  forcibly,  and  might  perhaps  have 
caused  him  to  say  more. 

At  a  lofty  point  upon  the  steep  w^all  of  Maryland 
Heights,  across  the  Potomac  from  the  town,  far,  far 
up  upon  the  side  of  the  cliff,  commanding  a  view  not  only 
of  both  rivers,  but  of  their  meeting  place  and  their  joint 
course  below,  and  of  the  lovely  contours  of  the  Blue 
Ridge  Mountains,  fading  to  smoky  coloring  in  the  re- 
mote distance,  there  has,  of  late  years,  appeared  the  out- 
line of  a  gigantic  face,  which  looks  out  from  its  emplace- 
ment like  some  Teutonic  god  in  vast  effigy,  its  huge 
luxuriant  mustaches  pointing  East  and  West  as  though 
in  symbolism  of  the  conquest  of  a  continent.  A  blue 
and  yellow  background,  tempered  somewhat  by  the  ele- 

lOO 


ffi 


HARPER'S  FERRY  AND  JOHN  BROWN 
ments,  serves  to  attract  attention  to  the  face  and  to  the 
legend  which  accompanies  it,  but  the  thing  one  sees 
above  all  else,  the  thing  one  recognizes,  is  the  face  it- 
self, with  its  look  half  tragic,  half  resigned,  yet  always 
so  inscrutable:  for  it  is  none  other  than  the  beautiful 
brooding  countenance  of  Gerhard  Mennen,  the  talcum- 
powder  gentleman. 

The  great  story  of  Harper's  Ferry  is  of  course  the 
John  Brown  story.  Joseph  I.  C.  Clarke,  writing  in  the 
New  York  "Sun"  of  Sir  Roger  Casement's  execution 
for  treason  in  connection  with  the  Irish  rebellion,  com- 
pared him  with  John  Brown  and  also  with  Don  Quixote. 
The  spiritual  likeness  between  these  three  bearded  fig- 
ures is  striking  enough.  All  were  idealists;  all  were 
fanatics.  Brown's  ideal  was  a  noble  one— that  of  free- 
dom—but his  manner  of  attempting  to  translate  it  into 
actuality  was  that  of  a  madman.  He  believed  not  only 
that  the  slaves  should  be  freed,  but  that  the  blood  of 
slaveholders  should  be  shed  in  atonement.  In  ''bleed- 
mg  Kansas"  he  led  the  Ossawatomie  massacre,  and 
committed  cold-blooded  murders  under  the  delusion  that 
the  sword  of  the  Lord  was  in  his  hand. 

In  October,  1859,  Brown,  who  had  for  some  time  been 
living  under  an  assumed  name  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Harper's  Ferry,  led  a  score  of  his  followers,  some  of 
them  negroes,  in  a  surprise  attack  upon  the  Government 
arsenal  at  this  place,  capturing  the  watchmen  and  taking 
possession  of  the  buildings.     It  was  his  idea  to  get  the 

lOI 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

weapons  the  arsenal  contained  and  give  them  to  the 
slaves  that  they  might  rise  and  free  themselves.  Before 
this  plan  could  be  executed,  however,  Urown  and  his 
men  were  besieged  in  the  armory,  and  here,  after  a  day 
or  two  of  bloody  fighting,  with  a  number  of  deaths  on 
both  sides,  he  was  captured  with  his  few  surviving  men, 
by  Colonel  (later  General)  Robert  E.  Lee,  whose  aide, 
upon  this  occasion,  was  J.  E.  B.  Stuart,  later  the  Con- 
federate cavalry  leader.  Stuart  had  been  in  Kansas, 
and  it  was  he  who  recognized  the  leader  of  the  raid  as 
Brown  of  Ossawatomie. 

It  is  said  that  Brown's  violent  anti-slavery  feeling  was 
engendered  by  his  having  seen,  in  his  youth,  a  colored 
boy  of  about  his  own  age  cruelly  misused.  He  brooded 
over  the  wrongs  of  the  blacks  until,  as  some  students  of 
his  life  believe,  he  became  insane  on  this  subject.  His 
utterances  show  that  he  was  willing  to  give  up  his  life 
and  those  of  his  sons  and  other  followers,  if  by  such 
action  he  could  merely  draw  attention  to  the  cause  which 
had  taken  possession  of  his  soul.  In  the  course  of  the 
fighting  he  saw  his  two  sons  mortally  wounded,  and  was 
himself  stabbed  and  cut.  Throughout  the  fight  and  his 
subsequent  trial  at  Charles  Town  he  remained  imper- 
turbable; when  taken  to  the  gallows  he  sat  upon  his 
coffin,  in  a  wagon,  and  he  not  only  mounted  the  scafifold 
without  a  tremor,  but  actually  stood  there,  apparently 
unmoved,  for  ten  or  fifteen  minutes,  with  the  noose 
around  his  neck,  while  the  troops  which  had  formed  his 
escort  were  marched  to  their  positions. 

1 02 


HARPER'S  FERRY  AND  JOHN  BROWN 

A  large  number  of  troops  were  present  at  the  execu- 
tion, for  it  was  then  beHeved  in  the  South  that  the  Brown 
raid  was  not  the  mere  suicidal  stroke  of  an  individual 
fanatic,  but  an  organized  movement  on  the  part  of  the 
Republican  party;  an  effort  to  rescue  Brown  was  there- 
fore apprehended.  This  idea  was  later  shown  to  be  a 
fallacy.  Brown  having  made  his  own  plans,  and  been 
financed  by  a  few  northern  friends,  headed  by  Gerrit 
Smith  of  New  York. 

There  has  been  a  tendency  in  the  North  to  make  a 
saint  of  John  Brown,  and  in  the  South  to  make  a  devil 
of  him.  As  a  matter  of  fact  he  was  a  poor,  misguided 
zealot,  with  a  wild  light  in  his  eye,  who  had  set  out  to 
do  a  frightful  thing;  for,  bad  though  slavery  was,  its 
evils  were  not  comparable  with  the  horrors  which  would 
have  resulted  from  a  slave  rebellion. 

It  must  be  conceded,  however,  that  those  who  would 
canonize  John  Brown  have  upon  their  side  a  strange  and 
impressive  piece  of  evidence.  The  jail  where  he  was 
lodged  in  Charles  Town  and  the  courthouse  where  he 
was  tried,  still  stand,  and  it  is  the  actual  fact  that,  when 
the  snow  falls,  it  always  miraculously  melts  in  a  path 
which  leads  diagonally  across  the  street  from  the  one  to 
the  other.  That  this  is  true  I  have  unimpeachable  tes- 
timony. Snozu  will  not  stand  on  the  path  by  which 
John  Brown  crossed  back  and  forth  from  the  jail  to  the 
court-house.  There  will  be  snow  over  all  the  rest  of 
the  street,  but  not  on  that  path;  there  you  can  see  it 
melting. 

103 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

But,  as  with  certain  other  "miracles,"  this  one  is  not 
so  difficult  to  understand  if  you  know  how  it  is  broui::ht 
about.  The  courthouse  is  heated  from  the  jail,  and  the 
hot  pipes  run  under  the  pavement. 


104 


CHAPTER  XI 
THE  VIRGINIAS  AND  THE  WASHINGTONS 

IN  colonial  times,  and  long  thereafter,  the  present 
State  of  West  Virginia  was  a  part  of  Virginia. 
Virginia,  in  the  old  days,  used  to  have  no  western 
borders  to  her  most  westerly  counties,  which,  in  theory, 
ran  out  to  infinity.  As  the  western  part  of  the  State 
became  settled,  county  lines  were  drawn,  and  new 
counties  were  started  farther  back  from  the  coast.  For 
this  reason,  towns  which  are  now  in  Jefferson  County, 
West  Virginia,  used  to  be  in  that  county  of  Virginia 
which  lies  to  the  east  of  Jefferson  County,  and  some 
towns  have  been  in  several  different  counties  in  the 
course  of  their  history. 

The  people  in  the  eastern  part  of  West  Virginia  are, 
so  far  as  I  am  capable  of  judging,  precisely  like  Vir- 
ginians. The  old  houses,  when  built,  were  in  Virginia, 
the  names  of  the  people  are  Virginian  names,  and  cus- 
toms and  points  of  view  are  Virginian.  Until  I  went 
there  I  was  not  aware  how  very  much  this  means. 

I  do  not  know  who  wrote  the  school  history  I  studied 
as  a  boy,  but  I  do  know  now  that  it  was  written  by  a  lop- 
sided historian,  and  that  his  "lop,"  like  that  of  many 
another  of  his  kind,  led  him  to  enlarge  upon  American 

105 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

naval  and  military  victories,  to  minimize  American  de- 
feats, to  give  an  impression  that  the  all-important  early 
colonies  were  those  of  New  England,  and  that  the  all- 
important  one  of  them  was  Massachusetts.  From  this 
bias  I  judge  that  the  historian  was  a  Boston  man.  It 
takes  a  Bostonian  to  think  in  that  way.     They  do  it  still. 

From  my  school  history  I  gathered  the  idea  that  al- 
though Sir  Walter  Raleigh  and  Captain  John  Smith 
were  so  foolish  as  to  dally  more  or  less  in  the  remote 
fastnesses  of  Virginia,  and  although  there  was  a  little 
ineffectual  settlement  at  Jamestown,  all  the  important 
colonizing  of  this  country  occurred  in  New  England.  I 
read  about  Peregrine  ^^'hite,  but  not  about  Virginia 
Dare;  I  read  much  of  Miles  Standish,  but  nothing  of 
Christopher  Newport;  I  read  a  great  deal  of  the  May- 
flower, but  not  a  word  of  the  Susan  Constant. 

Yet  Virginia  Dare,  if  she  lived,  must  have  been  near- 
ing  young  ladyhood  when  Peregrine  White  w^as  born; 
Captain  Christopher  Newport  passed  the  Virginia 
capes  when  Miles  Standish  was  hardly  more  than  a 
youth,  in  Lancashire;  and  the  Susan  Constant  landed 
the  Jamestown  settlers  more  than  a  dozen  years  before 
the  Mayflower  landed  her  shipload  of  eminent  furni- 
ture owners  at  Plymouth.  Even  Plymouth  itself  had 
been  visited  years  before  by  John  Smith,  and  it  was  he, 
not  the  Pilgrims,  w^ho  named  the  place. 

I  find  that  some  boys,  to-day,  know  these  things. 
But  though  that  fact  is  encouraging,  I  am  not  writing 
for  boys,  but  for  their  comparatively  ignorant  parents. 

1 06 


VIRGINIAS  AND  WASHINGTONS 

Not  only  did  the  first  English  colony  establish  itself 
in  Virginia,  and  the  first  known  tobacco  come  from  there 
— a  point  the  importance  of  which  cannot  be  overstated 
— but  the  history  of  the  Old  Dominion  is  in  every  way 
more  romantic  and  heroic  than  that  of  any  other  State. 
The  first  popular  government  existed  there  long  before 
the  Revolution,  and  at  the  time  of  the  break  with  the 
mother   country  Virginia   was  the  most  wealthy   and 
populous  of  the   Colonies.     Some  historians   say  that 
slavery  was  first  introduced  there  when  some  Dutch- 
men sold  to  the  colonists  a  shipload  of  negroes,  but  I 
believe  this  point  is  disputed.     The  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence was,  of  course,  written  by  a  Virginian,  and 
made  good  by  the  sword  of  one.     The  first  President  of 
the  United  States  was  a  Virginian,  and  so  is  the  present 
Chief  Executive.     The  whole  of  New  England  has  pro- 
duced but  four  presidents ;  Ohio  has  produced  six ;  but 
Virginia  has  given  us  eight.     The  first  British  army  to 
land  on  this  continent  (Braddock's)  landed  in  Virginia, 
and  in  that  State  our  two  greatest  wars  were  terminated 
by  the  surrenders  of  Cornwallis  and  of  Lee.     And,  last, 
the  gallant  Lee  himself  was  a  Virginian  of  the  Virgini- 
ans— a  son  of  the  distinguished  Henry  Lee  who  said 
of  Washington  that  he  was  "first  in  war,  first  in  peace, 
and  first  in  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen." 

On  the  pleasant  drive  of  perhaps  a  dozen  miles,  from 
Harper's  Ferry  to  Charles  Town,  I  noticed  here  and 
there,   at   the   roadside,   pyramidal   stones,   suggesting 

107 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

monuments,  but  bearing  no  inscription  save  that  each 
had  a  number.  On  inquiry  1  learned  that  these  were 
indeed  Confederate  monuments,  Init  that  to  find  <»ut 
what  they  marked  it  was  necessary  to  go  to  the  county 
courthouse  at  Charles  Town  and  look  up  the  numbers 
in  a  book,  of  which  there  is  but  one  copy.  These  monu- 
ments were  set  out  three  or  four  years  ago.  They  ap- 
peared suddenly,  almost  as  though  they  had  grown  over- 
night, and  many  people  wondered,  as  I  had,  what  they 
meant. 

"Eloise,"  one  Charles  Town  young  lady  asked  an- 
other, "what 's  that  monument  out  in  front  of  your 
house  with  the  number  twenty-one  on  it  ?" 

*'0h,"  replied  Eloise,  "that 's  where  all  my  suitors  are 
buried." 

One  of  the  things  which  gives  Jefiferson  County,  West 
Virginia,  its  Virginian  flavor  is  the  collection  of  fine 
old  houses  which  adorn  it.  Many  of  these  houses  are 
the  homes  of  families  bearing  the  name  of  Washington, 
or  having  in  their  veins  the  blood  of  the  Washingtons. 
It  is  said  that  there  is  more  Washington  blood  in 
Charles  Town  (which,  by  the  way,  should  not  be  con- 
fused with  Charleston,  capital  of  the  same  State),  than 
in  any  other  place,  if  not  in  all  the  rest  of  the  w^orld 
together.  The  nearest  competitors  to  Charles  Tow^n  in 
this  respect  are  Westmoreland  County,  Virginia,  and 
the  town  of  Kankakee,  Illinois,  where  resides  the 
Spottswood  Augustine  Washington  family,  said  to  be 

io8 


VIRGINIAS  AND  WASHINGTONS 

the  only  Washington  group  to  have  taken  the  Union 
side  in  the  Civil  War.  It  is  rumored  also  that  all  the 
Washingtons  are  Democrats,  although  that  fact  is  hard 
to  reconcile,  at  the  present  time,  with  the  statement  that, 
among  the  five  thousand  of  them,  there  is  but  a  single 
Federal  officeholder. 

The  settling  of  the  Washingtons  in  Jefferson  County, 
West  Virginia,  came  about  through  the  fact  that  George 
Washington,  when  a  youth  of  sixteen  or  seventeen,  be- 
came acquainted  with  that  part  of  what  was  then  Vir- 
ginia, through  having  gone  to  survey  for  Lord  Fair- 
fax, who  had  acquired  an  enormous  tract  of  land  in  the 
neighboring  county  of  Clarke,  which  is  still  in  the 
mother  State.  To  this  estate,  called  Greenaway  Court, 
his  lordship,  it  is  recorded,  came  from  England  to  iso- 
late himself  because  a  woman  with  whom  he  was  in  love 
refused  to  marry  him. 

In  this  general  neighborhood  George  Washington 
lived  for  three  years,  and  local  enthusiasts  affirm  that  to 
his  having  drunk  the  lime-impregnated  waters  of  this 
valley  was  due  his  great  stature.  The  man  who  in- 
formed me  of  this  theory  had  lived  there  aways.  He 
was  about  five  feet  three  inches  tall,  and  had  drunk  the 
waters  all  his  life — plain  and  otherwise. 

Washington's  accounts  of  the  region  so  interested  his 
brothers  that  they  finally  moved  there,  acquired  large 
tracts  of  land,  and  built  homes.  Charles  Town,  indeed, 
was  laid  out  on  the  land  of  Charles  Washington,  and 
was  named  for  him,  and  there  is  evidence  that  George 

109 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Washington,  who  certainly  gave  the  lines  for  the  roads 
about  the  place,  also  laid  out  the  town. 

Another  brother,  John  Augustine,  left  a  large  family, 
while  Samuel,  the  oldest,  descril^ed  as  "a  rollicking  coun- 
try s(|uire,"  was  several  years  short  of  fifty  when  he 
died,  but  for  all  that  had  managed  to  marry  five  times 
and  to  find,  nevertheless,  spare  moments  in  which  to  lay 
out  the  historic  estate  of  Harewood,  not  far  from 
Charles  Town.  It  is  said  that  George  Washington  was 
his  brother's  partner  in  this  enterprise,  but  excepting 
in  its  interior,  which  is  very  beautiful,  there  is  no 
sign,  about  the  building,  of  his  graceful  architectural 
touch. 

George  Washington  spent  much  time  at  Harewood, 
Lafayette  and  his  son  visited  there,  and  there  the 
sprightly  widow,  Dolly  Todd,  married  James  Madison. 
This  wedding  was  attended  by  President  Washington 
and  his  wife  and  by  many  other  national  figures;  the 
bride  made  the  journey  to  Harewood  in  Jefferson's 
coach,  escorted  by  Madison  and  a  group  of  his  friends 
on  horseback,  and  history  makes  mention  of  a  very  large 
and  very  gay  company. 

This  is  all  very  well  until  you  see  Harewood ;  for,  sub- 
stantial though  the  house  is,  with  its  two-foot  stone 
walls,  it  has  but  five  rooms:  two  downstairs  and  three 
up. 

Where  did  they  all  sleep? 

The  question  was  put  by  the  practical  young  lady 
whom  I  accompanied  to  Harewood,  but  the  wife  of  the 

I  lO 


VIRGINIAS  AND  WASHINGTONS 

farmer  to  whom  the  place  is  rented  could  only  smile  and 
shake  her  head. 

The  bedroom  now  occupied  by  this  farmer  and  his 
wife  has  doubtless  been  occupied  also  by  the  first  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  and  his  wife,  the  fourth  Presi- 
dent and  his  wife,  by  Lafayette,  and  by  a  King  of  France 
— for  Louis-Philippe,  and  his  brothers,  the  Due  de 
Montpensier  and  the  Comte  de  Beaujolais,  spent  some 
time  at  Harewood  during  their  period  of  exile. 

Having  read  in  an  extract  from  the  Baltimore  "Sun" 
that  Harewood,  which  is  still  owned  in  the  Washington 
family,  was  a  place  in  which  all  Washingtons  took  great 
and  proper  pride,  that  it  was  "the  lodestone  which  draws 
the  wandering  Washingtons  back  to  the  old  haunts," 
I  was  greatly  shocked  on  visiting  the  house  to  see  the 
shameful  state  of  dilapidation  into  which  it  has  been  al- 
lowed to  pass.  The  porches  and  steps  have  fallen  down, 
the  garden  is  a  disreputable  tangle,  and  the  graves  in 
the  yard  are  heaped  with  tumble-down  stones  about 
which  the  cattle  graze.  The  only  parts  of  the  building 
in  good  repair  are  those  parts  which  time  has  not  yet 
succeeded  in  destroying.  The  drawing-room,  contain- 
ing a  mantelpiece  given  to  Washington  by  Lafayette, 
and  the  finest  wood  paneling  I  have  seen  in  any  Amer- 
ican house,  has  held  its  own  fairly  well,  as  has  also 
the  old  stairway,  imported  by  Washington  from  Eng- 
land. But  that  these  things  are  not  in  ruins,  like  the 
porches,  is  no  credit  to  the  Washingtons  who  own  the 
property  to-day,  and  who,  having  rented  the  place,  actu- 

III 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

ally  leave  family  portraits  hanging  on  the  walls  to  crack 
and  rot  through  the  cold  winter. 

If  there  are  indeed  five  thousand  Washingtons,  and  if 
they  are  proud  of  their  descent,  a  good  way  for  them  to 
show  it  would  be  to  contribute  twenty-five  cents  each  to  be 
expended  on  putting  Harewood  in  respectable  condition. 

The  last  member  of  the  Washington  family  to  own 
Mount  Vernon  was  John  Augustine  Washington,  of 
Charles  Town,  who  sold  the  former  home  of  his  distin- 
guished collateral  ancestor.  This  Mr.  Washington  was 
a  Confederate  officer  in  the  Civil  War.  He  had  a  son 
named  George,  whose  widow,  if  I  mistake  not,  is  the 
Mrs.  George  Washington  of  Charles  Town,  of  whom  I 
heard  an  amusing  story. 

W^ith  another  Charles  Town  lady  this  Mrs.  Washing- 
ton went  to  the  Columbian  Exposition  in  Chicago,  and 
the  two  attended  the  Fair  together  on  Washington  Day. 
On  this  occasion  Mrs.  Washington  made  a  purchase  in 
one  of  the  buildings,  and  ordered  it  sent  to  her  home  in 
Charles  Town. 

''What  name?"  asked  the  clerk. 

"Mrs.  George  Washington." 

The  clerk  concluded  that  she  was  joking. 

'T  want  your  real  name,"  he  insisted  with  a  smile. 

*'But,"  plaintively  protested  the  gentle  Mrs.  Wash- 
ington, "that  is  the  only  name  I  have!" 

One  of  the  most  charming  of  the  old  houses  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Charles  Town,  and  one  of  the  few 

112 


VIRGINIAS  AND  WASHINGTONS 
which  is  still  occupied  by  the  descendants  of  its  builder, 
is  Piedmont,  the  residence  of  the  Briscoe  family.  It  is 
a  brick  house,  nearly  a  century  and  a  half  old,  with  a 
lovely  old  portico,  and  it  contains  two  of  the  most  in- 
teresting relics  I  saw  on  my  entire  journey  in  the  South. 
The  first  of  these  is  the  wall  paper  of  the  drawing-room, 
upon  which  is  depicted,  not  in  pattern,  but  in  a  series 
of  pictures  with  landscape  backgrounds,  various  scenes 
representing  the  adventures  of  Telemachus  on  his  search 
for  his  father.  I  remember  having  seen  on  the  walls 
of  the  parlor  of  an  old  hotel  at  South  Berwick,  Maine, 
some  early  wall  paper  of  this  character,  but  the  pictures 
on  that  paper  were  done  in  various  shades  of  gray, 
whereas  the  Piedmont  wall  paper  is  in  many  colors. 
The  other  relic  is  a  letter  which  Mrs.  Briscoe  drew  from 
her  desk  quite  as  though  it  had  been  a  note  received  that 
morning  from  a  friend.  It  was  written  on  tough  buff- 
colored  paper,  and,  though  the  ink  was  brown  vdth  age, 
the  handwriting  was  clear  and  legible  and  the  paper 
was  not  broken  at  the  folds.  It  was  dated  "Odiham, 
Sept.  1st,  1633,"  and  ran  as  follows: 

To  Dr.  John  Briscoe,  Greetings. 

Dear  Sir:  As  the  Privy  Council  have  decided  that  I  shall 
not  be  disturbed  or  dispossessed  of  the  charter  granted  by  his 
Majesty— the  Ark  and  Pinnace  Dove  will  sail  from  Gravesend 
about  the  ist  of  October,  and  if  you  are  of  the  same  mind  as 
when  I  conversed  with  you,  I  would  be  glad  to  have  you  join 
the  colony. 

With  high  esteem,  Your  most  obedient  servant, 

Cecilius  Baltimore. 

113 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

This  letter  from  the  second  Lord  Baltimore  refers 
to  the  historic  voyage  which  resulted  in  the  first  settle- 
ment of  ^Maryland,  thirteen  years  after  the  landing  of 
the  Pilgrims  at  Plymouth.  As  for  Dr.  Briscoe,  to 
whom  the  letter  was  written,  he  was  one  of  the  three 
hundred  original  colonists,  but  after  settling  in  St. 
Mary's,  near  the  mouth  of  the  Potomac,  removed  to  the 
place  where  his  descendants  still  reside. 

Farther  out  in  Jefferson  County  the  motorist  may 
pass  through  two  curious  hamlets  which,  though  not 
many  miles  from  Charles  Town,  have  the  air  of  being 
completel}^  removed  from  the  world.  One  of  these  was 
known,  many  years  ago,  as  Middleway,  and  later  as 
Smithfield,  but  is  now  called  Clip — and  for  a  curious 
reason. 

When  the  stagecoaches  were  running,  the  town  was 
quite  a  place,  as  its  several  good  old  houses  indicate; 
but  the  railroads,  when  they  were  built,  ignored  the 
town,  but  killed  the  stage  lines,  with  the  result  that  the 
little  settlement  dried  up.  Even  before  this  an  old  plas- 
ter-covered house,  still  standing,  became  haunted.  The 
witches  who  resided  in  it  developed  the  unpleasant  cus- 
tom of  flying  out  at  night  and  cutting  pieces  from  the 
clothing  of  passers-by.  And  that  is  how  the  town  came 
to  be  called  Clip. 

A  century  or  so  ago,  when  the  rudeness  of  the  witches 
had  long  annoyed  the  inhabitants  of  Clip,  and  had 
proved  very  detrimental  to  their  clothing,  a  Roman 
Catholic  priest  came  along  and  told  them  that  if  they 

114 


VIRGINIAS  AND  WASHINGTONS 

would  give  him  a  certain  field,  he  would  rid  them  of 
the  evil  spirits.  This  struck  the  , worthy  citizens  of 
Clip  as  a  good  bargain;  they  gave  the  priest  his  field 
(it  is  still  known  as  the  Priest's  Field,  and  is  now  used 
as  a  place  for  basket  picnics)  and  forthwith  the  opera- 
tions of  the  witches  ceased.  So,  at  least,  the  story 
goes. 

Not  far  beyond  Clip  lies  the  hamlet  of  Leetown,  tak- 
ing its  name  from  that  General  Charles  Lee  who  com- 
manded an  American  army  in  the  Revolutionary  War, 
but  who  was  suspected  by  \\^ashington  of  being  a  trai- 
tor, and  vv^as  finally  court-martialed  and  cashiered  from 
the  army.  The  old  stone  house  which  Lee  built  at  Lee- 
town, and  in  which  he  lived  after  his  disgrace,  still  re- 
mains. Instead  of  having  partitions  in  his  house  the 
old  general  lived  in  one  large  room,  upon  the  floor  of 
which  he  made  chalk  marks  to  indicate  different  cham- 
bers. Here  he  dwelt  surrounded  by  innumerable  dogs, 
and  here  he  was  frequently  visited  by  Generals  Horatio 
Gates  and  Adam  Stephen,  who  were  neighbors  and 
cronies  of  his,  and  met  at  his  house  to  drink  wine  and 
exchange  stories. 

It  is  said  that  upon  one  of  these  occasions  Lee  got  up 
and  declared : 

"The  county  of  Berkeley  is  to  be  congratulated  upon 
having  as  citizens  three  noted  generals  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, each  of  whom  was  ignominiously  cashiered.  You, 
Stephen,  for  getting  drunk  when  you  should  have  been 
sober ;  you.  Gates,  for  advancing  when  you  should  have 

115 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

retreated ;  and  your  humble  servant  for  retreating  when 
he  should  have  advanced." 

Lee  was  a  turbulent,  insubordinate,  hard-drinking 
rascal,  and  nothing  could  be  more  characteristic  than  the 
will,  written  in  his  own  handwriting,  filed  by  the  old 
rei)r()l)ate  with  the  clerk  of  the  Berkeley  County  Court, 
and  expressing  the  following  sentiments : 

I  desire  most  earnestly  that  I  may  not  be  buried  in  any  church 
or  churchyard,  or  within  a  mile  of  any  Presbyterian  or  Ana- 
baptist meeting  house,  for  since  I  have  resided  in  this  county  I 
have  kept  so  much  bad  company  when  living  that  I  do  not  desire 
to  continue  it  when  dead. 

During  Lee's  life  there,  Leetown  was  probably  a  live- 
lier place  than  it  is  to-day.  Something  of  its  present 
state  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that  when  a  lady 
of  my  acquaintance  stopped  her  motor  there  recently, 
and  asked  some  men  what  time  it  was,  they  stared 
blankly  at  her  for  a  moment,  after  which  one  of  them 
said  seriously: 

*'We  don't  know.     We  don't  have  time  here." 


116 


'What's  the  matter  with  him?"  I  asked,  stopping 


CHAPTER  XII 
I  RIDE  A  HORSE 

And  vaulted  with  such  ease  into  his  seat 

As  if  an  angel  dropp'd  down  from  the  clouds, 

To  turn  and  wind  a  fiery  Pegasus 

And  witch  the  world  with  noble  horsemanship. 

— King  Henry  IV. 

CLAYMONT  COURT,  near  Charles  Town,  the 
house  in  which  my  companion  and  I  were  so 
fortunate  as  to  be  guests  during  our  visit  to 
this  part  of  the  cotmtry,  is  one  of  the  old  Washington 
houses,  having  been  built  by  Bushrod  Corbin  Washing- 
ton, a  nephew  of  the  first  President.  It  is  a  beautiful 
brick  building,  with  courts  at  either  end,  the  brick  walls 
of  which,  connecting  with  the  house,  extend  its  lines 
with  peculiar  grace,  and  tie  to  the  main  structure  the 
tw^in  buildings  which  balance  it,  according  to  the  de- 
lightful fashion  of  early  Virginia  architecture.  The 
hexagonal  brick  tile  of  the  front  walk  at  Claymont 
Court,  and  the  square  stone  pavement  of  the  portico, 
resemble  exactly  those  at  Mount  Vernon,  and  are  said 
to  have  been  imported  at  the  same  time ;  and  it  is  believed 
also  that  the  Claymont  box  trees  were  brought  over  with 
those  growing  at  Mount  Vernon. 

The  estate  was  sold  out  of  the  Washington  family 

117 


AMERICAX  ADX'KXTURES 

in  1870,  when  it  was  acquired  Ijy  a  Colonel  March,  who 
later  sold  it  to  a  gentleman  whose  wild  performances 
at  Claymont  are  not  only  remembered,  but  are  com- 
memorated in  the  house.  In  the  cellar,  for  instance, 
bricked  up  in  a  room  barely  large  enough  to  hold  it, 
whence  it  cannot  be  removed  except  by  tearing  down  a 
heavy  wall,  stands  a  huge  carved  sideboard  to  which 
the  young  man  took  a  dislike,  and  w^iich  he  therefore 
caused  to  be  carried  to  the  cellar  and  immured,  despite 
the  protests  of  his  family.  It  is  said  that  upon  another 
occasion  he  conceived  the  picturesque  idea  of  riding  his 
horse  upstairs  and  hitching  it  to  his  bedpost;  and  that 
he  did  so  is  witnessed  by  definite  marks  of  horseshoes 
on  the  oak  treads  of  the  stair.  Later  Frank  R.  Stock- 
ton purchased  the  place,  and  there  he  w^rote  his  story 
"The  Captain  of  the  Toll-Gate,"  w^hich  was  published 
posthumously. 

But  in  all  its  history  this  glorious  old  house  has  never 
been  a  happier  home,  or  a  more  interesting  one,  than  it 
is  to-day.  For  now  it  is  the  residence  of  four  young 
ladies,  sisters,  w-ho,  because  of  their  divergent  tastes 
and  their  complete  congeniality,  continually  suggest  the 
fancy  that  they  have  stepped  out  of  a  novel.  One  of 
them  is  the  Efficient  Sister,  who  runs  the  automobile 
and  the  farm  of  two  or  three  hundred  acres,  sells  the 
produce,  keeps  the  accounts,  and  pays  off  the  men;  an- 
other is  the  Domestic  Sister,  w^ho  conducts  the  ad- 
mirable menage;  another  is  the  Sociological  and  Artistic 
Sister,    w'ho    draws    and   plays   and    thinks   about   the 

118 


I  RIDE  A  HORSE 

masses;  while  the  fourth  is  the  Sprightly  Sister  ^^^ho 
Likes  to  Dance. 

Never  had  my  companion  or  I  seen  a  more  charm- 
ing, a  more  varied  household,  an  establishment  more 
self-contained,  more  complete  in  all  things  from  vege- 
tables to  brains.  No  need  to  leave  the  place  for  any- 
thing. Yet  if  one  wished  to  look  about  the  country, 
there  was  the  motor,  and  there  were  the  saddle  horses 
in  the  stable — all  of  them  members  of  old  Virginian 
families — and  there  were  four  equestrian  young  ladies. 
'Would  you-all  like  to  ride  to-day  ?"  one  of  the  sisters 
asked  us  at  breakfast. 

To  my  companion,  horseback  riding  is  comparatively 
a  new  thing.  He  had  taken  it  up  a  year  before— partly 
because  of  appeals  from  me,  partly  because  of  changes 
which  he  had  begun  to  notice  in  his  topography.  Com- 
pared with  him  I  was  a  veteran  horseman,  for  it  was 
then  a  year  and  three  months  since  I  had  begun  my  rid- 
ing lessons. 

I  said  that  I  would  like  to  ride,  but  he  declared  that  he 
must  stay  behind  and  make  a  drawing. 

Sometimes,  in  the  past,  I  had  thought  I  would  pre- 
fer to  make  my  living  as  a  painter  or  an  illustrator  than 
as  a  writer,  but  at  this  juncture  it  occurred  to  me  that, 
though  the  writer's  medium  of  expression  is  a  less 
agreeable  one  than  that  of  the  graphic  artist,  it  is  much 
pleasanter  to  ride  about  with  pretty  girls  than  to  sit 
alone  and  draw  a  picture  of  their  house.  I  began  to 
feel  sorry  for  my  companion:  the  thought  of  our  rid- 

119 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

ing  gaily  off,  and  leaving  him  at  work,  made  him  seem 
pathetic.  My  appeals,  however,  made  no  impression 
upon  his  inflexible  sense  of  duty,  and  I  soon  ceased  try- 
ing to  persuade  him  to  join  us,  and  began  to  speculate, 
instead,  as  to  whether  all  four  sisters  would  accompany 
me.  or  whether  only  two  or  three  of  them  w^ould  go — 
and  if  so,  which. 

"What  kind  of  horse  do  you  like?"  asked  one. 

Such  a  question  always  troubles  me.  It  is  embar- 
rassing. Imagine  saying  to  a  young  lady  who  likes  to 
ride  thoroughbred  hunters  across  fields  and  over  ditches 
and  fences :  "I  should  like  a  handsome  horse,  one  that 
will  cause  me  to  appear  to  advantage,  one  that  looks 
spirited  but  is  in  reality  tame." 

Such  an  admission  w^ould  be  out  of  character  with  the 
whole  idea  of  riding.  One  could  hardly  make  it  to  one's 
most  intimate  male  friend,  let  alone  to  a  girl  who  knows 
all  about  withers  and  hocks  and  pastern  joints,  and 
talks  about  "paneled  country,"  and  takes  the  "Racing 
Calendar." 

To  such  a  young  lady  it  is  impossible  to  say:  "I 
have  ridden  for  a  little  more  than  a  year;  the  horses 
wath  which  I  am  acquainted  are  benevolent  creatures 
from  a  riding  school  near  Central  Park;  they  go  around 
the  reservoir  twice,  and  return  automatically,  and  they 
sigh  deeply  when  one  mounts  and  again  when  one  gets 
off." 

No ;  that  sort  of  thing  will  not  do  at  all ;  for  the  horse 
— besides  having  been  placed  in  a  position  more  aristo- 

I20 


I  RIDE  A  HORSE 

cratic  than  ever,  through  the  philanthropies  of  Henry 
Ford — is  essentially  ''sporty."  You  must  be  a  "sport" 
or  you  must  keep  away  from  him.  You  must  approach 
him  with  dash  or  you  must  not  approach  him  at  all. 
And  when  a  young  lady  inquires  what  kind  of  horse  you 
like,  there  is  but  one  way  to  reply. 

"It  does  n't  matter  at  all,"  I  answered.  "Any  horse 
will  do  for  me."  Then,  after  a  little  pause,  I  added,  as 
though  it  were  merely  an  amusing  afterthought:  "I 
suppose  I  shall  be  stiff  after  my  ride.  I  have  n't  been  on 
a  horse  in  nearly  two  months." 

"Then,"  said  the  sympathetic  young  lady,  "you  '11 
want  an  easy  ride." 

"1  suppose  it  might  be  more  sensible,"  I  conceded. 

"Better  give  him  the  black  mare,"  put  in  the  Efficient 
Sister. 

"She  has  n't  been  out  lately,"  said  the  other.  "You 
know  how  she  acts  when  she  has  n't  been  ridden  enough. 
He  might  not  know  just  how  to  take  her.  I  w^as  think- 
ing of  giving  him  'Dr.  Bell'  " 

"Dr.  Bell 's  too  gentle,"  said  the  Efficient  Sister. 

"Which  horse  do  you  think  you'd  like?"  the  other 
asked  me.  "Dr.  Bell  has  plenty  of  life,  but  he  's  gen- 
tle. The  black  mare  's  a  little  bit  flighty  at  first,  but  if 
you  can  ride  her  she  soon  finds  it  out  and  settles  down." 

I  want  to  ask:  "What  happens  if  she  finds  out  that 
you  can't  ride  her?  What  does  she  do  then?"  But  I 
refrained. 

"She  's  never  thrown  anybody  but  a  stable  boy  and 

121 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

a  man  who  came  up  here  to  visit — and  neither  one  of 
them  could  ride  worth  a  cent,"  said  the  Efficient  Sister. 

Meanwhile  1  had  been  thinking  hard. 

"What  color  is  Dr.  Bell?"  I  asked. 

"He  's  a  sorrel." 

"Then,"  I  said,  "I  believe  I  'd  rather  ride  Dr.  Bell. 
I  don't  like  black  horses.  It  is  simply  one  of  those  pecul- 
iar aversions  one  gets." 

They  seemed  to  accept  this  statement,  and  so  the  mat- 
ter w^as  agreeably  settled. 

When,  at  ten  o'clock,  I  came  down  dressed  for  rid- 
ing, my  companion  was  out  in  front  of  the  house,  mak- 
ing a  drawing;  the  four  young  ladies  were  with  him,  all 
seemingly  enchanted  with  his  work,  and  none  of  them  in 
riding  habits. 

"Who  's  going  with  me?"  I  asked  as  I  strolled  toward 
them. 

They  looked  at  one  another  inquiringly.  Then  the 
Efficient  Sister  said:  "I  'd  like  to  go,  but  this  is  pay 
day  and  I  can't  leave  the  place." 

"I  have  to  go  to  town  for  some  supplies,"  said  the 
Domestic  Sister. 

"I  want  to  stay  and  watch  this,"  said  the  Sociological 
and  Artistic  Sister.  (She  made  a  gesture  toward 
my  companion,  but  I  think  she  referred  to  his  draw- 
ing-) 

"I  'm  going  away  to  a  house  party,"  said  the  Sprightly 

Sister  who  Likes  to  Dance.     "I  must  pack." 
"You  can't  get  lost,"  said  the  Domestic  Sister. 

122 


I  RIDE  A  HORSE 

"Even  if  you  should,"  put  in  the  Efficient  Sister,  "Dr. 
Bell  would  bring  you  home." 

During  this  conversation  my  companion  did  not  look 
up  from  his  work,  neither  did  he  speak;  yet  upon  his 
back  there  was  an  expression  of  derisive  glee  which 
made  me  hope,  vindictively,  that  he  would  smudge  his 
drawing.  However  inscrutable  his  face,  I  have  never 
known  a  man  with  a  back  so  expressive. 

"Here  comes  Dr.  Bell,"  remarked  the  Sociological 
and  Artistic  Sister,  as  a  negro  groom  appeared  leading 
the  sorrel  steed. 

"Well,"  I  said,  trying  to  speak  debonairely  as  I 
started  toward  the  drive,  "I  '11  be  going." 

I  wished  to  leave  them  where  they  were  and  go 
around  to  the  other  side  of  the  house  to  mount.  I  had 
noticed  a  stone  block  there  and  meant  to  use  it  if  no  one 
but  the  groom  were  present;  also  I  intended  to  tip  the 
groom  and  ask  him  a  few  casual  questions  about  the 
ways  of  Dr.  Bell. 

I  might  have  managed  this  but  for  a  sudden  mani- 
festation of  interest  on  the  part  of  my  companion. 

"Come  on,"  he  said  to  the  young  ladies,  "let 's  go 
and  see  him  off."  It  seemed  to  me  that  he  emphasized 
the  word  "off"  unpleasantly.  However  I  tried  to  seem 
calm  as  we  moved  toward  the  drive. 

Dr.  Bell  had  a  bright  brown  eye;  there  was  some- 
thing alert  in  the  gaze  with  which  he  watched  us  mov- 
ing toward  him.  However,  to  my  great  relief  he  stood 
quite  still  while  two  of  the  sisters  who  preceded  me  by 

123 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

a  few  steps,  went  up  and  patted  him.     Evidently  he  Hked 
to  be  patted.     1  decided  that  i  would  pat  him  also. 

I  had  approached  him  from  the  left  and  in  order  to 
mount  I  now  found  it  necessary  to  circle  around,  in 
front  of  him.  I  was  determined  that  if  the  horse  would 
but  remain  stationary  I  should  step  up  to  him,  speak  to 
him,  give  him  a  quick  pat  on  the  neck,  gather  the  reins 
in  my  hand,  place  my  foot  swiftly  in  the  stirrup,  take 
a  good  hop,  and  be  on  his  back  before  any  one  had  time 
to  notice. 

Dr.  Bell,  however,  caused  me  to  alter  these  plans; 
for  though  he  had  stood  docile  as  a  dog  while  the  sis- 
ters patted  him,  his  manner  underwent  a  change  on  sight 
of  me.  I  do  not  think  this  change  was  caused  by  any 
personal  dislike  for  me.  I  believe  he  would  have  done 
the  same  had  any  stranger  appeared  before  him  in  rid- 
ing boots.  The  trouble  was,  probal)ly,  that  he  had  ex- 
pected to  be  ridden  by  one  of  the  young  ladies,  and  was 
shocked  l)y  the  abrupt  discovery  that  a  total  stranger 
was  to  ride  him.  This  is  merely  my  surmise.  I  do  not 
claim  deep  understanding  of  the  mental  workings  of 
any  horse,  for  there  is  no  logic  about  them  or  their 
performances.  They  are  like  crafty  lunatics,  reason- 
ing, if  they  reason  at  all,  in  a  manner  too  treacherous 
and  devious  for  human  comprehension.  Their  very 
usefulness,  the  service  they  render  man,  is  founded  on 
their  own  folly ;  were  it  not  for  that,  man  could  not  even 
catch  them,  let  alone  force  them  to  submit,  like  weak- 
minded  giants,  to  his  will. 

124 


I  RIDE  A  HORSE 

The  fact  is  that,  excepting  barnyard  fowls,  the  horse 
is  the  most  idiotic  of  all  animals,  and,  pound  for  pound, 
even  the  miserable  hen  is  his  intellectual  superior.  In- 
deed, if  horses  had  brains  no  better  than  those  of  hens, 
but  proportionately  larger,  they  would  not  be  drawing 
wagons,  and  carrying  men  upon  their  backs,  but  would 
be  lecturing  to  women's  clubs,  and  holding  chairs  in  uni- 
versities, and  writing  essays  on  the  Development  of  the 
Short  Story  in  America. 

Horse  lovers,  who  are  among  the  most  prejudiced  of 
all  prejudiced  people,  and  who  regard  horses  with  an 
amiable  but  fatuous  admiration  such  as  young  parents 
have  for  their  babies,  will  try  to  tell  you  that  these 
great  creatures  which  they  love  are  not  mentally  de- 
ficient. Ask  them  why  the  horse,  with  his  superior 
strength,  submits  to  man,  and  they  will  tell  you  that  the 
horse's  eye  magnifies,  and  that,  to  the  horse,  man  con- 
sequently appears  to  be  two  or  three  times  his  actual 
size. 

Nonsense!  There  is  but  one  reason  for  the  yielding 
of  the  horse:  he  is  an  utter  fool. 

Everything  proves  him  a  fool.  He  will  charge  into 
battle,  he  will  walk  cheerfully  beside  a  precipice,  he 
will  break  his  back  pulling  a  heavy  wagon,  or  break 
his  leg  or  his  neck  in  jumping  a  hurdle;  yet  he  will  go 
into  a  frenzy  of  fright  at  the  sight  of  a  running  child, 
a  roadside  rock,  or  the  shadow  of  a  branch  across  the 
path,  and  not  even  a  German  chancellor  could  shy  as  he 
will  at  a  scrap  of  paper. 

125 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

As  I  passed  in  front  of  Dr.  Bell  he  rolled  his  eyes  at 
me  horribly,  and  rose  upon  his  hind  legs,  almost  up- 
setting the  groom  as  he  went  up  and  barely  missing  him 
with  his  fore  feet  as  he  brought  them  to  earth  again. 

"What's  the  matter  with  him?"  I  asked,  stop- 
ping. 

"I  guess  he  just  feels  good,"  said  the  Efficient  Sister. 

"Yassuh,  tha  's  all,"  said  the  groom  cheerfully. 
"He 's  aw'  right.     Gentle  ath  a  lamb." 

As  he  made  this  statement,  I  took  another  step  in  the 
direction  of  the  horse,  whereat  he  reared  again. 

''Well,  now!"  said  the  groom,  patting  Dr.  Bell  upon 
the  neck.  "Feelin'  pretty  good  \s  mawnin',  is  you? 
There,  there!" 

Dr.  Bell,  however,  paid  little  attention  to  his  attend- 
ant, but  gazed  steadily  at  me  with  an  evil  look. 

''Does  he  always  do  like  that?"  I  asked  the  Domestic 
Sister, 

'T  never  saw  him  do  it  before,"  she  said. 

"Maybe  he  does  n't  admire  the  cut  of  your  riding 
breeches,"  suggested  my  companion. 

"Oh,  no,  suh,"  protested  the  groom.  "It 's  jes'  his 
li'l  way  tryin'  t'  tell  you  he  likes  de  ladies  t'  ride  him 
better  'n  he  likes  de  gemmen." 

"He  means  he  doesn't  want  me  to  ride  him?" 

"Yassuh,  da  's  jes'  his  li'l  idee  't  he  's  got  now.  He 
be  all  right  once  you  in  de  saddle." 

"But  how  am  I  to  get  in  the  saddle  if  he  keeps  doing 

that?" 

126 


I  RIDE  A  HORSE 

"I  hold  'im  all  right,"  said  the  groom.  "You  jes'  get- 
on  'im,  suh.     He  soon  find  out  who  's  boss." 

"I  think  he  will,"  said  my  heartless  companion. 

"Nevvah  you  feah,  suh,"  the  man  said  to  me.  "Ah 
knowed  the  minute  Ah  saw  yo'  laigs  't  you  was  a  Jiorse- 
man.  Yassuh!  Ah  says  t'  ole  Gawge,  Ah  says,  'Dat 
gemman  's  certain'y  been  'n  de  cava'ry,  he  has,  wid  dem 
fine  crooked  laigs  o'  hisn.'  " 

"You  should  have  told  that  to  Dr.  Bell,  instead,"  sug- 
gested my  companion. 

At  this  every  one  laughed.  Even  the  groom  laughed 
a  wheezy,  cackling  negro  laugh.  The  situation  was 
becoming  unbearable.  Clearly  I  must  try  to  motmt. 
Perhaps  I  should  not  succeed,  but  I  must  try.  As  I 
was  endeavoring  to  adjust  my  mind  to  this  unpleasant 
fact  the  Efficient  Sister  spoke. 

"That  horse  is  going  to  be  ridden,"  she  said  firmly, 
"if  I  have  to  go  upstairs  and  dress  and  ride  him  my- 
self." 

That  settled  it. 

"Now  you  hold  him  down,"  I  said  to  the  groom,  and 
stepped  forward. 

As  I  did  so  Dr.  Bell  reared  again,  simultaneously 
drawing  back  sidewise  and  turning  his  flank  away  from 
me,  but  this  time  the  Efficient  Sister  hit  him  with  a  crop 
she  had  found  somewhere,  and  he  came  down  hastily, 
and  began  to  dance  a  sort  of  double  clog  with  all  four 
feet. 

After  several  efforts  I  managed  to  get  beside  him. 

127 


AMERICAN  ADVEXTl'RES 

Gathering  the  reins  in  my  left  hand  I  put  my  foot  up 
swiftly,  found  the  stirrup,  and  with  a  hop,  managed  to 
board  the  beast. 

As  1  did  so,  the  groom  let  him  go.  Both  stirrups 
were  short,  but  it  was  too  late  to  discuss  that,  for  by 
the  time  1  was  adjusted  to  my  seat  we  had  traveled, 
at  a  run,  over  a  considerable  part  of  the  lawn  and 
through  most  of  the  flowerbeds.  The  shortness  of  the 
stirrups  made  me  bounce,  and  I  had  a  feeling  that  I 
might  do  better  to  remove  my  feet  from  them  entirely, 
but  as  I  had  never  ridden  without  stirrups  I  hesitated 
to  try  it  now.  Therefore  I  merely  dug  my  knees  des- 
perately into  the  saddle  flaps  and  awaited  what  should 
come,  while  endeavoring  to  check  the  animal,  lie, 
however,  kept  his  head  down,  which  not  only  made  it 
difficult  to  stop  him,  but  also  gave  me  an  unpleasant 
sense  as  of  riding  on  the  cowcatcher  of  a  locomotive 
with  nothing  but  space  in  front  of  me.  Once,  with  a 
jerk,  I  managed  to  get  his  head  up,  but  when  I  did  that 
he  reared.     I  do  not  care  for  rearing. 

To  add  to  my  delight,  one  of  the  dogs  now  ran  out 
and  began  to  bark  and  circle  around  us,  jumping  up  at 
the  horse's  nose  and  nipping  at  his  heels.  This  brought 
on  new  activities,  for  now  Dr.  Bell  not  only  reared  but 
elevated  himself  suddenly  behind,  to  kick  at  the  dog. 
However,  there  was  one  good  result.  We  stopped  run- 
ning and  began  to  trot  rapidly  about  in  circles,  dodging 
the  dog,  and  this  finally  brought  us  back  toward  the 
house. 

128 


I  RIDE  A  HORSE 

"My  stirrups  are  too  short !"  I  shouted  to  the  groom. 

"Ride  oveh  heah,  suh,"  he  called  back. 

I  tried  to  do  it,  but  Dr.  Bell  continued  to  move  in 
circles.  At  last,  however,  the  man  managed  to  catch  us 
by  advancing  with  his  hand  extended,  as  though  offering 
a  lump  of  sugar,  at  the  same  time  talking  gently  to  my 
steed.  Then,  while  my  companion  held  the  bit  the 
negro  adjusted  the  stirrup  leathers.  I  was  glad  of  the 
breathing  spell.  I  wished  that  it  took  longer  to  adjust 
stirrups. 

"You  'd  better  go  out  by  the  drive  this  time,"  said  the 
Efficient  Sister. 

"I  intended  to  before,"  I  told  her,  "but  he  did  n't  seem 
to  understand  the  signals." 

"You  've  got  spurs  on.     Give  him  the  spur." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  had  hesitated  to  give  him  the 
spur.  It  seemed  to  me  that  he  was  annoyed  with  me 
anyway,  and  that  the  spur  would  only  serve  to  increase 
his  prejudice.  I  wanted  to  rule  him  not  by  brute  force 
but  by  kindness.  I  wished  that  I  could  somehow  make 
him  know  that  I  was  a  regular  subscriber  to  the  S.  P. 
C.  A.,  that  I  loved  children  and  animals  and  all  helpless 
creatures,  both  great  and  small,  that  I  used  the  dumb 
brutes  gently  and  only  asked  in  return  that  they  do  the 
same  by  me.  But  how  is  one  to  communicate  such 
humanitarian  ideas  to  a  big,  stupid,  wilful,  perverse, 
diabolical  creature  like  a  horse? 

I  was  determined  that  when  we  started  again  we 
should  not  rim  over  the  lawn  if  I  could  possibly  pre- 

129 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

vent  it.  Therefore  I  had  the  groom  head  the  horse 
down  the  drive,  and  the  moment  he  released  him,  I 
touched  Dr.  Bell  with  the  spurs.  The  result  was 
magical.  He  started  on  a  run  but  kept  in  the  road 
where  I  wanted  him  to  be,  giving  me,  for  the  moment,  a 
sense  of  having  stmiething  almost  like  control  over  him. 
At  the  foot  of  the  drive  was  a  gate  which  I  knew  could 
be  opened  without  dismounting,  by  pulling  a  rope,  and 
as  no  horse,  unless  quite  out  of  his  mind,  will  deliberately 
run  into  a  gate,  I  had  reason  to  hope  that  Dr.  Bell  would 
stop  w^hen  he  got  there.  Imagine  my  feelings,  then, 
when  on  sight  of  the  gate  he  not  only  failed  to  slacken 
his  pace,  but  acutally  dashed  at  it  faster  than  ever. 
Within  a  few  feet  of  the  barrier  he  seemed  to  pause 
momentarily,  hunching  himself  in  a  peculiar  and  alarm- 
ing manner:  then  he  arose,  sailed  through  the  air  like  a 
swallow,  came  down  beyond  like  a  load  of  trunks  falling 
off  from  a  truck,  and  galloped  down  the  highway,  seem- 
ingly quite  indifferent  to  the  fact  that  the  stirrups  were 
flapping  at  his  sides  and  that  I  had  moved  from  the 
saddle  to  a  point  near  the  base  of  his  neck. 

My  position  at  the  moment  was  one  of  considerable 
insecurity.  By  holding  on  to  his  mane  and  wriggling 
backward  I  hoped  to  stay  on,  provided  he  did  not  put 
down  his  head.  If  he  did  that,  I  was  lost.  Fortu- 
nately for  me,  however.  Dr.  Bell  did  not  realize  with 
what  ease  he  could  have  dropped  me  at  that  moment, 
and  by  dint  of  cautious  but  eager  gymnastics,  I  man- 
aged to  regain  the  saddle  and  the  stirrups,  although  in 

130 


I  RIDE  A  HORSE 

doing  so  I  pricked  him  several  times  with  the  spurs,  with 
the  resuh  that,  though  he  ran  faster  than  ever  for  a 
time,  he  must  have  presently  concluded  that  I  did  n't 
care  how  fast  he  went;  at  all  events,  he  slackened  his 
pace  to  a  canter,  from  which,  shortly,  I  managed  to 
draw  him  down  to  a  trot  and  then  to  a  walk. 

I  am  glad  to  say  that  not  until  now  had  we  met  any 
vehicle.  Even  while  he  was  running,  even  while  I  was 
engaged  in  maintaining  a  precarious  seat  upon  his  neck, 
I  had  found  time  to  hope  fervently  that  we  should  not 
encounter  an  automobile.  I  was  afraid  that  he  would 
jump  it  if  we  did. 

Now,  however,  I  saw  a  motor  approaching.  Dr.  Bell 
saw  it,  too,  and  pricked  up  his  ears.  Seizing  the  reins 
firmly  in  one  hand,  I  waved  with  the  other,  signalling  to 
the  motorist  to  stop,  which  he  did,  pulling  out  into  the 
ditch.  Meanwhile  I  talked  to  Dr.  Bell,  patting  him  on 
the  neck  and  telling  him  to  go  on  and  not  to  be  afraid, 
because  it  was  all  right.  Dr.  Bell  did  go  on.  He  went 
up  to  the  front  of  the  motor,  past  the  side  of  it,  and 
on  behind  it,  without  showing  the  least  sign  of  alarm. 
He  did  not  mind  it  at  all.  But  the  man  in  the  motor 
minded.  Annoyed  with  me  for  having  stopped  him  un- 
necessarily, he  shouted  something  after  me.  But  I  paid 
no  attention  to  him.  Under  the  circumstances,  it 
seemed  the  only  thing  to  do.  I  might  have  gotten  off; 
I  misfht  conceivablv  have  beaten  him ;  but  I  never  could 
have  held  the  horse  while  doing  it,  or  have  gotten  on 
again. 

131 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Presently,  when  I  was  changini^  the  position  of  the 
reins,  which  were  hurting  my  lingers  because  I  had 
gripped  them  so  tight,  I  accidentally  shifted  the  gears 
in  some  way,  so  to  speak,  sending  Dr.  Dell  off  at  a  pace 
which  was  neither  a  trot  nor  a  canter,  but  which  carried 
us  along  at  a  sort  of  smooth,  rapid  glide.  At  first  I  took 
this  gait  to  be  a  swift  trot,  and  attempted  to  post  to  it; 
then,  as  that  did  not  work,  I  sat  still  in  the  saddle  and, 
finding  the  posture  comfortable,  concluded  that  Dr.  Bell 
must  be  single-footing.  I  had  never  single-footed  be- 
fore. Just  as  I  was  beginning  to  like  it,  however,  he 
changed  to  a  trot,  then  l)ack  to  single-footing  again,  and 
so  on,  in  a  curious  puzzling  manner. 

Except  for  the  changes  of  gait,  we  were  now  going  on 
rather  well,  and  I  had  begun,  for  the  first  time,  to  feel 
a  little  security,  when  all  of  a  sudden  he  swerved  off 
and  galloped  with  me  up  a  driveway  leading  toward  a 
white  house  which  stood  on  a  hill  two  or  three  hundred 
yards  from  the  road.  Again  I  tried  to  stop  him,  but 
when  I  pulled  on  the  reins  he  shook  his  head  savagely 
from  side  to  side  and  snorted  in  a  loud  and  threatening 
manner. 

As  we  neared  the  house  I  saw  that  two  ladies  were  sit- 
ting on  the  porch  regarding  our  approach  with  interest. 
I  hoped  that  Dr.  Bell  would  find  some  way  of  keeping 
on  past  the  house  and  into  the  fields,  but  he  had  no  such 
intention.  Instead  of  going  by,  he  swung  around  the 
circle  before  the  porch,  and  stopped  at  the  steps,  upon 
which  the  two  ladies  were  sitting. 

132 


I  RIDE  A  HORSE 

One  of  them  was  a  white-haired  woman  of  gentle 
mien;  the  other  was  a  girl  of  eighteen  or  twenty  with 
pretty,  mischievous  eyes. 

Both  the  ladies  looked  up  inquiringly  as  Dr.  Bell  and 
I  stopped. 

I  lifted  my  hat.  It  was  the  only  thing  I  could  think  of 
to  do  at  the  moment.  At  this  they  both  nodded  gravely. 
Then  we  sat  and  stared  at  one  another. 

"Well?"  said  the  old  lady,  when  the  silence  had  be- 
come embarrassing. 

I  felt  that  I  must  say  something,  so  I  remarked : 

"This  is  a  very  pretty  place  you  have  here." 

At  this,  though  the  statement  was  quite  true,  they 
looked  perplexed. 

'Ts  there  any  message?"  asked  the  young  woman, 
after  another  pause. 

"Oh,  no,"  I  answered  lightly.  "I  was  riding  by  and 
thought  I  'd  take  the  liberty  of  coming  up  and  telling 
you — telling  you  that  although  I  am  a  Northerner  and  a 
stranger  here,  I  love  the  South,  the  quaint  old  South- 
ern customs,  the  lovely  old  houses,  the  delicious  waffles, 
the—" 

"That  is  very  gratifying,"  said  she  "I  am  sorry  to  say 
we  are  all  out  of  waffles  at  present." 

"Oh,  I  don't  want  any  now,"  I  replied  politely. 

"Well,  if  you  don't  mind  my  asking,  what  do  you 
want?" 

"I  want,"  I  said,  desperately,  "to  see  your  groom  for  a 
moment,  if  possible." 

^33 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

"He  's  gone  to  town,"  she  replied.  "Is  there  anything 
I  can  do?  I  see  that  your  stirrup  leather  is  twisted." 
With  that  she  arose,  came  down,  removed  my  foot  from 
the  stirrup,  in  a  businesslike  manner,  reversed  the  iron, 
and  put  my  foot  back  for  me. 

I  thanked  her. 

"Anything  else?"  she  asked,  her  wicked  eye  twink- 
ling. 

"Perhaps,"  I  ventured,  "perhaps  you  know  how  to 
make  a  horse  single-foot?" 

"There  are  different  ways,"  she  said.  "With  Dr.  Bell 
you  might  try  using  the  curb  gently,  working  it  from 
side  to  side." 

"I  will,"  I  said.     "Thank  you  very  much." 

"And,"  said  the  girl,  "if  he  ever  takes  a  notion  to  bolt 
wnth  you,  or  to  go  up  to  some  house  where  you  don't 
want  him  to  go,  just  touch  him  w^ith  the  curb.  That 
will  fix  him.     He  's  very  soft-bitted." 

"But  I  tried  that,"  I  protested. 

She  looked  at  my  reins,  then  shook  her  head. 

"No,"  she  said,  "you  've  got  your  curb  rein  and  your 
snaffle  rein  mixed." 

"I  am  very  much  indebted  to  you,"  I  said,  as  I  changed 
the  position  of  the  reins  between  my  fingers. 

"Not  at  all,"  said  she.  "  I  hope  you  '11  get  safely  back 
to  the  Claymont.  If  you  w-ant  to  jump  him,  give  him 
his  head.     He  '11  take  ofif  all  right." 

"Thanks,"  I  returned.     "I  don't  want  to  jump  him." 

Then  lifting  my  hat  and  thanking  her  again,  I  wiggled 

134 


I  RIDE  A  HORSE 

the  curb  gently  from  side  to  side,  as  directed,  and  de- 
parted, singlefooting  comfortably. 

Dr.  Bell  and  I  got  home  very  nicely.  He  wanted  to 
jump  the  gate  again,  but  I  checked  him  with  the  curb. 
After  pulling  the  rope  to  open  the  gate  I  must  have  got 
the  reins  mixed  once  more,  for  as  I  was  nearing  the 
house,  calm  in  the  feeling  that  I  had  mastered  the  ani- 
mal, and  intent  upon  cantering  up  to  the  porch  in  fine 
style.  Dr.  Bell  swerved  suddenly  off  to  the  stable,  went 
into  the  door,  and,  before  I  could  stop  him,  entered  his 
stall. 

There  I  dismounted  in  absolute  privacy.  It  was 
quite  easy.  I  had  only  to  climb  on  to  the  partition  and 
drop  down  into  the  next  stall,  which,  by  good  fortune, 
was  vacant. 

With  a  single  exception,  this  was  the  only  riding  I  did 
in  the  South,  and  on  the  one  other  occasion  of  which  I 
speak  I  did  not  ride  alone,  but  had,  surrounding  me,  the 
entire  Eleventh  United  States  Cavalry. 


135 


CHAPTER  XIII 
INTO  THE  OLD  DOMINION 

WHEN  two  men  are  traveling  together  on  an 
equal  footing,  and  it  becomes  necessary  to 
decide  between  two  rooms  in  a  hotel,  how 
is  the  decision  to  be  made?  Which  man  is  to  take  the 
big,  bright  corner  room,  and  which  the  little  room  that 
faces  on  the  court  and  is  fragrant  of  the  bakery  below  ? 
Or  again,  which  man  shall  occupy  the  lower  berth  in  a 
Pullman  drawing-room,  and  which  shall  try  to  sleep 
upon  the  shelf-like  couch?  Or  when  there  is  but  one 
lower  left,  which  shall  take  the  upper?  If  an  extra 
kit  bag  be  required  for  the  use  of  both,  who  shall  ])ay 
for  it  and  own  it  at  the  journey's  end?  Who  shall  jiay 
for  this  meal  and  who  for  that?  Or  yet  again,  if  there 
be  but  one  cheap  heavy  overcoat  in  a  shop,  and  both  de- 
sire to  own  that  coat,  which  one  shall  have  the  right  of 
purchase?  Who  shall  tip  the  bell  boy  for  bringing  up 
the  bags,  or  the  porter  for  taking  down  the  trunks? 
Who  shall  take  home  from  a  dance  the  girl  both  want 
to  take,  and  who  shall  escort  the  unattractive  one  who 
resides  in  a  remote  suburb? 

Between  two  able-bodied  men  there  is  no  uncomfort- 

,able  complication  of  politeness  in  such  matters.     On  a 

brief  journey  there  might  be,  but  on  a  long  journey  the 

136 


INTO  THE  OLD  DOMINION 

thin  veil  of  factitious  courtesy  is  cast  aside;  each  wants 
his  fair  share  of  what  is  best  and  makes  no  pretense  to 
the  contrary. 

Upon  our  first  long  journey  together,  some  years  ago, 
my  companion  and  I  established  a  custom  of  settling 
all  such  questions  by  matching  coins,  and  we  have  main- 
tained this  habit  ever  since.  Upon  the  whole  it  has 
worked  well.  We  have  matched  for  everything  except 
railroad  fares  and  hotel  bills,  and  though  fortune  has 
sometimes  favored  one  or  the  other  for  a  time,  I  be- 
lieve that,  had  we  kept  accounts,  we  should  find  our- 
selves to-day  practically  even. 

Our  system  of  matching  has  some  correlated  customs. 
Now  and  then,  for  instance,  when  one  of  us  is  unlucky 
and  has  been  "stuck"  for  a  series  of  meals,  the  other,  in 
partial  reparation,  will  declare  a  ''party."  Birthdays 
and  holidays  also  call  for  parties,  and  sometimes  there 
will  be  a  party  for  no  particular  reason  other  than  that 
we  feel  like  having  one. 

Two  of  our  parties  on  this  journey  have  been  given  in 
the  basement  cafe  of  the  Shoreham  Hotel  in  Washing- 
ton. Both  were  supper  parties.  The  first  I  gave  in 
honor  of  my  companion,  for  the  reason  that  we  both  like 
the  Shoreham  cafe,  and  that  a  party  seemed  to  be  about 
due.  That  party  brought  on  the  other,  which  occurred 
a  few  nights  later  and  was  given  by  us  jointly  in  honor 
of  a  very  beautiful  and  talented  young  actress.  And 
this  one,  we  agree,  was,  in  a  way,  the  most  amusing  of 
all  the  parties  we  have  had  together. 

U7 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

It  was  early  in  the  morning,  when  we  were  leaving  the 
cafe  after  the  first  party,  that  we  encountered  the  lady 
who  caused  the  second  one.  I  had  never  met  her,  but  I 
was  aware  that  my  companion  knew  her,  for  he  talked 
about  her  in  his  sleep.  She  was  having  supper  with  a 
gentleman  at  a  table  near  the  door,  and  had  you  seen  her 
it  would  be  unnecessary  for  me  to  tell  you  that  my  com- 
panion stopped  to  speak  to  her,  and  that  I  hung  around 
until  he  introduced  me. 

After  we  had  stood  beside  her,  for  a  time,  talking  and 
gazing  down  into  her  beautiful  world-wise  eyes,  the 
gentleman  with  whom  she  was  supping  took  pity  upon 
us,  and  upon  the  waiters,  whose  passageway  we  blocked, 
and  invited  us  to  sit  down. 

It  was  doubly  delightful  to  meet  her  there  in  Wash- 
ington, for  besides  being  beautiful  and  celebrated,  she 
had  just  come  from  New  York  and  was  able  to  give  us 
news  of  mutual  friends,  bringing  us  up  to  date  on  suits 
for  separation,  alimony,  and  alienation  of  affections,  on 
divorces  and  remarriages,  and  all  the  little  items  one 
loses  track  of  when  one  has  been  away  for  a  fortnight. 

"I  shall  be  playing  in  Washington  all  this  week,"  she 
said  as  were  about  to  leave.  "I  hope  that  we  may 
see  each  other  again." 

Whom  did  she  mean  by  "we"?  True,  she  looked  at 
my  companion  as  she  spoke,  but  he  was  seated  at  one 
side  of  her  and  I  at  the  other,  and  even  with  such  eyes 
as  hers,,  she  could  not  have  looked  at  both  of  us  at 

138 


INTO  THE  OLD  DOMINION 

once.  Certainly  the  hope  she  had  expressed  was  shared 
by  me.  /  hoped  that  "we"  might  meet  again,  and  it 
seemed  to  me  desirable  at  the  moment  that  she  should 
understand  (and  that  my  companion  should  be  re- 
minded) that  he  and  I  were  as  Damon  and  Pythias,  as 
Castor  and  Pollux,  as  Pylades  and  Orestes,  and  all  that 
sort  of  thing.  Therefore  I  leaped  quickly  at  the  word 
''we,"  and,  before  my  companion  had  time  to  answer, 
replied : 

"1  hope  so  too." 

This  brought  her  eyes  to  me.  She  looked  surprised, 
I  thought,  but  what  of  that?  Don't  women  like  to  be 
surprised?  Don't  they  like  men  to  be  strong,  resolute, 
determined,  like  heroes  in  the  moving  pictures  ?  Don't 
they  like  to  see  a  man  handle  matters  with  dash?  I  was 
determined  to  be  dashing. 

'*We  are  off  to  Virginia  to-morrow  morning,"  I  con- 
tinued. "We  are  going  to  Fredericksburg  and  Char- 
lottesville, and  into  the  fox-hunting  country.  If  we 
can  get  back  here  Saturday  night  let 's  have  a  party." 

I  spoke  of  the  hunting  country  debonairely.  I  did  not 
care  what  she  thought  my  companion  was  going  to  the 
hunting  country  for,  but  I  did  not  wish  her  to  think  that 
I  was  going  only  to  look  on.  On  the  contrary,  I  desired 
her  to  suppose  that  I  should  presently  be  wearing  a  pair 
of  beautiful,  slim-legged  riding  boots  and  a  pink  coat, 
and  leaping  a  thoroughbred  mount  over  fences  and 
gates.     I  wished  her  to  believe  me  a  wild,  reckless,  devil 

139 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

of  a  fellow,  and  to  worry  throughout  the  week  lest  I  be 
killed  in  a  fall  from  my  horse,  and  she  never  see  me  more 
— poor  girl! 

That  she  felt  such  emotions  I  have  since  had  reason 
to  doubt.  However,  the  idea  of  a  party  after  the  play 
on  Saturday  night  seemed  to  appeal  to  her,  and  it  was 
arranged  that  my  companion  and  I  should  endeavor  to 
get  back  to  Washington  after  the  Piedmont  Hunt  races, 
which  we  were  to  attend  on  Saturday  afternoon,  and 
that  if  we  could  get  back  we  should  telegraph  to  her. 

We  kept  our  agreement — but  I  shall  come  to  that 
later. 

Next  morning  we  took  train  for  Fredericksburg. 

The  city  manager  who  runs  the  town  is  a  good  house- 
keeper; his  streets  are  wide,  pretty,  and  clean;  and 
though  there  are  many  historic  buildings — including 
the  home  of  Washington's  mother  and  the  house  in 
which  Washington  became  a  Mason — there  are  enough 
good  new  ones  to  give  the  place  a  progressive  look. 

In  the  days  of  the  State's  magnificence  Fredericks- 
burg was  the  center  for  all  this  part  of  northeastern  Vir- 
ginia, and  particularly  for  the  Rappahannock  Valley; 
and  from  pre-Revolutionary  times,  when  tobacco  was 
legal  tender  and  ministers  got  roaring  drunk,  down  to 
the  Civil  War,  there  came  rolling  into  the  town  the 
coaches  of  the  great  plantation  owners  of  the  region, 
who  used  Fredericksburg  as  a  headquarters  for  drink- 
ing, gambling,  and  business.     Among  these  probably  the 

140 


INTO  THE  OLD  DOMINION 

most  famous  was  *'King"  Carter,  who  not  only  owned 
miles  upon  miles  of  land  and  a  thousand  slaves,  but  was 
the  husband  of  five  (successive)  Mrs.  Carters. 

Falmouth,  a  river  town  a  mile  above  Fredericksburg, 
where  a  few  scattered  houses  stand  to-day,  was  in  early 
times  a  busy  place.  It  is  said  that  the  first  flour  mill  in 
America  stood  there,  and  that  one  Gordon,  who  made 
his  money  by  shipping  flour  and  tobacco  direct  from  his 
wharf  to  England,  and  bringing  back  bricks  as  ballast 
for  his  ships,  was  the  first  American  millionaire. 

Besides  having  known  intimately  such  historic  figures 
as  Washington,  Monroe,  and  Robert  E.  Lee,  and  having 
been  the  scene  of  sanguinary  fighting  in  the  Civil  War, 
the  neighborhood  of  Fredericksburg  boasts  the  birth- 
place of  a  man  of  whom  I  wish  to  speak  briefly  here,  for 
the  reason  that  he  was  a  great  man,  that  he  has  been 
partially  overlooked  by  history,  and  that  it  is  said  in  the 
South  that  the  fame  which  should  justly  be  his  has  been 
deliberately  withheld  by  historians  and  politicians  for 
the  sole  reason  that  as  a  naval  officer  he  espoused  the 
southern  cause  in  the  Civil  War. 

Every  one  who  has  heard  of  Robert  Fulton,  certainly 
every  one  who  has  heard  of  S.  F.  B.  Morse  or  Cyrus 
W.  Field,  ought  also  to  have  heard  of  Matthew  Fon- 
taine Maury.  But  that  is  not  the  case.  For  myself,  I 
must  confess  that,  until  I  visited  Virginia,  I  was  igno- 
rant of  the  fact  that  such  a  person  had  existed;  nor 
have  northern  schoolboys,  to  whom  I  have  spoken  of 
Maury,  so  much  as  heard  his  name.     Yet  there  is  no 

141 


AMERICAN  ADVI^:XTURES 

one  living  in  the  United  States,  or  in  any  civilized  coun- 
try, whose  daily  life  is  not  affected  through  the  scientific 
researches  and  attainments  of  this  man. 

Maury's  claim  to  fame  rests  on  his  eminent  services 
to  navigation  and  meteorology.  If  Humboldt's  work, 
published  in  1817,  was  the  first  great  contribution  to 
meteorological  science,  it  remained  for  Maury  to  make 
that  science  exact. 

\\'hile  it  is  perhaps  an  exaggeration  to  say  that 
Maury  alone  laid  the  foundation  for  our  present 
\\'eather  Bureau,  he  certainly  shares  with  Professors 
Redfield,  Espy,  Loomis,  Joseph  Henry,  Dr.  Increase 
Lapham,  and  others,  the  honor  of  having  been  one  of 
the  first  to  suggest  the  feasibility  of  our  present  sys- 
tematic storm  warnings. 

Maury  was  born  in  1806.  When  nineteen  years  of 
age  he  secured  a  midshipman's  warrant,  and,  as  there 
was  no  naval  academy  at  Annapolis  then,  was  immedi- 
ately assigned  to  a  man-of-war.  Within  six  years  he 
was  master  of  an  American  war  vessel.  Before  start- 
ing on  a  voyage  to  the  Pacific  he  sought  information  on 
the  winds  and  currents,  and  finding  that  it  was  not  avail- 
able, determined  himself  to  gather  it  for  general  publi- 
cation.    This  he  did,  issuing  a  book  upon  the  subject. 

When  a  broken  leg,  the  result  of  a  stage-coach  acci- 
dent, caused  his  retirement  from  active  service  at  sea, 
he  continued  his  studies,  and,  in  recognition  of  his  serv- 
ices to  navigation,  w^as  given  charge  of  the  Depot  of 
Charts    and    Instruments    at    Washington.     There   he 

14J 


INTO  THE  OLD  DOMINION 

found  stored  away  the  log  books  of  American  naval 
vessels,  and  from  the  vast  number  of  observations  they 
contained,  began  the  compilation  of  the  Wind  and  Cur- 
rents Charts  known  to  all  mariners. 

A  monograph  on  Maury,  issued  by  N.  W.  Ayer  & 
Son,  of  Philadelphia,  says  of  these  charts : 

'They  were,  at  first,  received  with  indifference  and 
incredulity.  Finally,  a  Captain  Jackson  determined  to 
trust  the  new  chart  absolutely.  As  a  result  he  made 
a  round  trip  to  Rio  de  Janeiro  in  the  time  often  re- 
quired for  the  outward  passage  alone.  Later,  four 
clipper  ships  started  from  New  York  for  San  Fran- 
cisco, via  Cape  Horn.  These  vessels  arrived  at  their 
destination  in  the  order  determined  by  the  degree  of 
fidelity  with  which  they  had  followed  the  directions  of 
Maury's  charts.  The  arrival  of  these  ships  in  San 
Francisco  marked,  likewise,  the  arrival  of  Maury's 
Wind  and  Currents  Charts  in  the  lasting  favor  of  the 
mariners  of  the  world.  The  average  voyage  to  San 
Francisco  was  reduced,  by  use  of  the  charts,  from  one 
hundred  and  eighty-three  to  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
five  days,  a  saving  of  forty-eight  days. 

"Soon  after  this,  the  ship  San  Francisco,  with  hun- 
dreds of  United  States  troops  on  board,  foundered  in 
an  Atlantic  hurricane.  The  rumor  reached  port  that 
there  was  need  of  help.  Maury  was  called  upon  to 
indicate  her  probable  location.  He  set  to  work  to  show 
where  the  wind  and  currents  would  combine  to  place 
a  helpless  wreck,  and  marked  the  place  with  a  blue  pen- 

143 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

cil.  There  the  relief  was  sent,  and  there  the  survivors 
of  the  wreck  were  found.  From  that  day  to  this, 
Maury's  word  has  been  accepted  without  challenge  by 
the  matter-of-fact  men  of  the  sea. 

"These  charts,  only  a  few  in  number,  are  among  the 
most  wonderful  and  useful  productions  of  the  human 
mind.  One  of  them  combined  the  result  of  1,159,353 
separate  observations  on  the  force  and  direction  of  the 
wind,  and  upward  of  ioo,cxxD  observations  on  the  height 
of  the  barometer,  at  sea.  As  the  value  of  such  obser- 
vations was  recognized,  more  of  them  were  made. 
Through  the  genius  and  devotion  of  one  man,  Com- 
mander Maury,  every  ship  became  a  floating  observa- 
tory, keeping  careful  records  of  winds,  currents,  lim- 
its of  fogs,  icebergs,  rain  areas,  temperature,  sound- 
ings, etc.,  while  every  maritime  nation  of  the  world 
cooperated  in  a  work  that  was  to  redound  to  the  benefit 
of  commerce  and  navigation,  the  increase  of  knowledge, 
the  good  of  all. 

"In  1853,  at  the  instance  of  Commander  Maury,  the 
United  States  called  the  celebrated  Brussels  Conference 
for  the  cooperation  of  nations  in  matters  pertaining  to 
maritime  afifairs.  At  this  conference,  Maury  advo- 
cated the  extension  of  the  system  of  meteorological  ob- 
servation to  the  land,  thus  forming  a  weather  bureau 
helpful  to  agriculture.  This  he  urged  in  papers  and 
addresses  to  the  close  of  his  life.  Our  present  Weather 
Bureau  and  Signal  Service  are  largely  the  outcome  of 
his  perception  and  advocacy." 

144 


INTO  THE  OLD  DOMINION 

Maury's  "Physical  Geography  of  the  Sea,"  the  work 
by  which  he  is  best  known,  was  pubHshed  in  1855.  He 
discovered,  among  other  things,  the  causes  of  the  Gulf 
Stream,  and  the  existence  of  the  still-water  plateau  of 
the  North  Atlantic  which  made  possible  the  laying  of 
the  first  cable.  Cyrus  W.  Field  said,  with  reference  to 
Maury's  work  in  this  connection:  ''Maury  furnished 
the  brains,  England  gave  the  money,  and  I  did  the  work." 

Maury  was  decorated  by  many  foreign  governments 
but  not  by  his  own.  Owing,  it  is  said,  to  his  having 
taken  up  the  Confederate  cause,  national  honors  were 
withheld  from  him,  not  only  during  the  remainder  of  his 
life,  but  until  191 6,  when  one  of  the  large  buildings  at 
the  Naval  Academy — the  establishment  of  which,  by  the 
way,  Maury  was  one  of  the  first  to  advocate — was 
named  for  him,  and  Congress  passed  a  bill  appropriat- 
ing funds  for  the  erection  of  a  monument  to  the  "Path- 
finder of  the  Sea,"  in  Washington. 

Maury  died  in  1873,  one  of  the  most  loved  and  hon- 
ored men  in  the  State  of  Virginia. 

It  is  recorded  that,  near  the  end,  he  asked  his  son: 
"Am  I  dragging  my  anchors?" 

And  when  the  latter  replied  in  the  affirmative,  the 
father  gave  a  brave  sailor's  answer : 

"All 's  well,"  he  said. 

Across  the  river  from  Fredericksburg  stands  Chat- 
ham, the  old  Fitzhugh  house,  one  of  the  most  charming  of 
early  Virginian  mansions.    Chatham  was  built  in  1728, 

145 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

and  it  is  thought  that  the  plans  for  it  were  drawn  by 
Sir  Christopher  Wren  at  the  order  of  W'ilUam  Pitt, 
Earl  of  Chatham,  and  sent  by  the  latter  to  William 
Fitzhugh,  who  had  been  his  classmate  at  Eton  and  Ox- 
ford. Not  only  does  the  name  of  the  house  lend  color 
to  the  tale,  but  so  do  its  proportions,  which  are  very 
beautiful,  reminding  one  somewhat  of  those  of  Dough- 
oregan  Manor.  Chatham,  however,  has  the  advantage 
of  being  (as  the  Hon.  Charles  Augustus  Alurray  wrote 
of  it  in  his  quaint  "Travels  in  North  America,"  pub- 
lished in  1839)  ''situated  on  an  eminence  commanding 
a  view  of  the  town,  and  of  the  bold,  sweeping  course 
of  the  Rappahannoc."  ^Murray  also  tells  of  the  beau- 
tiful garden,  wnth  its  great  box  trees  and  its  huge  slave- 
built  terraces,  stepping  down  to  the  water  like  a  giant's 
stairway. 

In  this  house  my  companion  and  I  were  guests,  and 
as  I  won  the  toss  for  the  choice  of  rooms,  mine  was  the 
privilege  of  sleeping  in  the  historic  west  bedchamber, 
the  principal  gxiest  room,  and  of  opening  my  eyes,  in  the 
morning,  upon  a  lovely  wall  all  paneled  in  white-painted 
wood. 

I  shall  always  remember  the  delightful  experience 
of  awakening  in  that  room,  so  vast,  dignified,  and  beauti- 
ful, and  of  lying  there  a  little  drowsy,  and  thinking  of 
those  who  had  been  there  before  me.  This  was  the 
room  occupied  by  George  and  Alartha  W^ashington  when 
they  stopped  for  a  few  days  at  Chatham  on  their  wed- 
ding journey;  this  was  the  room  occupied  by  Madison, 

146 


INTO  THE  OLD  DOMINION 

by  Monroe,  by  Washington  Irving,  and  by  Robert  E. 
Lee  when  he  visited  Chatham  and  courted  Mary  Custis, 
who  became  his  wife.  And,  most  wonderful  of  all  to 
me,  this  was  the  room  occupied  by  Lincoln  when  he  came 
to  Fredericksburg  to  review  the  army,  while  Chatham 
was  Union  headquarters,  and  the  embattled  Lee  had 
headquarters  in  the  old  house  known  as  Brompton,  still 
standing  on  Marye's  Heights  back  of  the  river  and  the 
town.  It  is  said  that  Lee  during  the  siege  of  Fred- 
ericksburg never  trained  his  guns  on  Chatham,  because 
of  his  sentiment  for  the  place.  As  I  lay  there  in  the 
morning  I  wondered  if  Lee  had  been  aware,  at  the  time, 
that  Lincoln  was  under  the  roof  of  Chatham,  and 
whether  Lincoln  knew,  when  he  slept  in  "my"  room, 
that  Washington  and  Lee  had  both  been  there  before 
him. 

War,  I  thought,  not  only  makes  strange  bedfellows, 
but  strange  combinations  in  the  histories  of  bedrooms. 

Then  the  maid  rapped  for  the  second  time  upon  my 
door,  and  though  this  time  I  got  up  at  once,  my  rumina- 
tions made  me  scandalously  late  for  breakfast. 

After  breakfast  came  the  motor,  which  was  to  take  us 
to  the  battlefields,  its  driver  a  thin  dry-looking,  dry- 
talking  man,  with  the  air  of  one  a  little  tired  of  the 
story  he  told  to  tourists  day  in  and  day  out,  yet  con- 
scientiously resolved  to  go  through  with  it.  Before  the 
huge  cemetery  which  overlooks  the  site  of  the  most  vio- 
lent fighting  that  occurred  in  the  bloody  and  useless 
Battle  of  Fredericksburg,  he  paused  briefly ;  then  drove 

147 


AMERICAN  AD\q-:X'rURES 

us  to  the  field  of  Chancellorsville,  to  that  of  the  Battles 
of  the  Wilderness,  and  finally  to  the  region  of  Spottsyl- 
vania  Courthouse ;  and  at  each  important  spot  he  stopped 
and  told  us  what  had  hai)pened  there.  He  knew  all 
about  the  Civil  War,  that  man,  and  he  had  a  way  of 
passing  out  his  information  with  a  calm  assumption  that 
his  hearers  knew  nothing  about  it  whatever.  This 
irritated  my  companion,  who  also  knows  all  about  the 
War,  having  once  passed  three  days  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  a  Soldiers'  Home.  Consequently  he  kept  cut- 
ting in,  supplying  additional  details — such,  for  instance, 
as  that  Stonewall  Jackson,  who  died  in  a  house  which 
the  driver  pointed  out,  was  shot  by  some  of  his  own  men, 
who  took  him  for  a  Yankee  as  he  was  returning  from  a 
reconnaissance. 

Either  one  of  these  competitive  historians  alone,  I 
could  have  stood,  but  the  way  they  picked  each  other 
up,  fighting  the  old-time  battles  over  again,  got  on  my 
nerves.  Besides,  it  was  cold,  and  as  I  have  taken  oc- 
casion to  remark  before,  I  do  not  like  cold  motor  rides. 
Indeed,  as  I  think  it  over,  it  seems  to  me  I  do  not  like 
battlefields,  either.  At  all  events,  I  became  more  and 
more  morose  as  we  traversed  that  bleak  Virginia  land- 
scape, and  I  am  afraid  that  before  the  day  was  over  I 
was  downright  sulky. 

As  we  drove  back  to  Fredericksburg  and  to  the  train 
which  was  to  take  us  to  Charlottesville,  my  companion 
made  remarks  of  a  general  character  about  people  who 
were  trivial  minded,  and  w^ho  did  n't  take  a  proper  in- 

148 


13- 

<  i- 

Cl.  -I 
►—I  C/l 

<  2 
«>  p 

t^  '^ 
O    rx, 

3  :=: 


of? 


^3 


INTO  THE  OLD  DOMINION 

terest  in  the  scenes  of  great  historical  occurrences. 
When  he  had  continued  for  some  time  in  this  vein,  I 
remarked  feebly  that  I  loved  to  read  about  battles ;  but 
that,  far  from  mitigating  his  severity,  only  caused  him 
to  change  his  theme.  He  said  that  physical  laziness 
was  a  terrible  thing  because  it  not  only  made  the  body 
soft  but  by  degrees  softened  the  brain,  as  well.  He 
said  that  when  people  didn't  want  to  see  battlefields, 
preferring  to  lie  in  bed  and  read  about  them,  that  was 
a  sign  of  the  beginning  of  the  end. 

On  various  occasions  throughout  the  week  he  brought 
this  subject  up  again,  and  I  was  glad  indeed  when,  as 
the  time  for  our  party  with  the  beautiful  young  actress, 
in  Washington,  drew  near,  he  began  to  forget  about 
my  shortcomings  and  think  of  more  agreeable  things. 


149 


CHAPTER  XIV 
CHARLOTTESVILLE  AND  MOXTICELLO 

WHEN  Virginians  speak  of  "the  university," 
they  do  not  mean  Harvard,  Princeton,  Yale, 
or  even  Washington  and  Lee,  but  always  the 
University  of  Virginia,  which  is  at  Charlottesville. 

The  city  of  Charlottesville,  in  its  downtown  parts,  is 
no  more  and  no  less  dingy  and  dismal  than  many  an- 
other town  of  six  or  seven  thousand  inhabitants,  be  it 
North  or  South.  It  has  a  long  main  street,  lined  with 
little  shops  and  moving-picture  shows,  and  the  theatrical 
posters  which  thrill  one  at  first  sight  with  hopes  of  even- 
ing entertainment,  prove,  on  inspection,  to  have  sur- 
vived long  after  the  "show"  they  advertise  has  come  and 
gone,  or  else  to  presage  the  *'show"  that  is  coming  for 
one  night,  week  after  next. 

Nor  is  this  scarcity  of  theatrical  entertainment  con- 
fined alone  to  small  towns  of  the  South.  Not  all  impor- 
tant stars  and  important  theatrical  productions  visit 
even  the  largest  cities,  for  the  South  is  not  regarded 
by  theatrical  managers  as  particularly  profitable  terri- 
tory. It  would  be  interesting  to  know  whether  anaemia 
of  the  theater  in  the  South,  as  well  as  the  falling  off 
generally  of  theatergoing  in  lesser  American  cities — 

150 


CHARLOTTESVILLE  AND  MONTICELLO 

usually  attributed  to  the  popularity  and  cheapness  of  the 
''movies" — is  not  due  in  large  measure  to  the  folly  of 
managers  themselves  in  sending  out  inferior  com- 
panies. Any  one  who  has  seen  a  theatrical  entertain- 
ment in  New  York  and  seen  it  later  "on  the  road"  is 
likely  to  be  struck  by  the  fact  that  even  the  larger  Ameri- 
can cities  do  not  always  get  the  full  New  York  cast, 
while  smaller  cities  seldom  if  ever  get  any  part  of  it. 
The  South  suffers  particularly  in  this  respect.  The 
little  ''river  shows,"  which  arrive  now  and  then  in  river 
towns,  and  which  are  more  or  less  characteristic  of  the 
South,  have  the  excuse  of  real  picturesqueness,  however 
bad  the  entertainment  given,  for  the  players  live  and 
have  their  theater  on  flatboats,  w^hich  tie  up  at  the 
wharf.  But  the  plain  fact  about  the  ordinary  little 
southern  "road  show"  is  that  it  does  not  deserve  to 
make  money. 

The  life  of  a  poor  player  touring  the  South  must  be 
very  wretched,  for  generally,  excepting  in  large  cities, 
hotels  are  poor.  Before  we  had  gone  far  upon  our  way, 
my  companion  and  I  learned  to  inquire  carefully  in 
advance  as  to  the  best  hotels,  and  when  we  found  in 
any  small  city  one  which  was  not  a  fire  trap,  and  which 
was  clean,  we  were  surprised,  while  if  the  service  was 
fairly  good,  and  the  meals  were  not  very  bad,  we  con- 
sidered it  a  matter  for  rejoicing. 

We  were  advised  to  stop,  in  Charlottesville,  at  the 
New  Gleason,  and  when  we  alighted  at  the  dingy  old 
brick  railroad  station — a  station  quite  as  unprepossess- 

151 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

ing  as  that  at  New  Haven,  Connecticut — \vc  began  to 
feel  that  all  was  not  for  the  best.  iV  large  gray  horse 
hitched  to  the  hack  in  which  we  rode  to  the  Gleason  evi- 
dently felt  the  same,  for  at  first  he  l)alked,  and  later  tried 
to  run  away. 

The  hotel  lobby  w\as  a  perfect  example  of  its  kind. 
There  were  several  drummers  writing  at  the  little  desks, 
and  several  more  sitting  idly  in  chairs  adjacent  to  brass 
cuspidors.  All  of  them  looked  despondent  with  a  de- 
spondency suggesting  pie  for  breakfast.  Behind  the 
desk  w^as  a  sleepy-looking  old  clerk  who,  as  we  arrived, 
was  very  busy  over  a  financial  transaction  involving 
change  of  ownership  in  a  two-cent  stamp.  This  enter- 
prise concluded,  he  assigned  us  rooms. 

Never  have  I  wished  to  win  the  toss  for  rooms  as  I 
wished  it  when  I  saw  the  two  allotted  to  us,  for  though 
the  larger  one  could  not  by  a  flight  of  fancy  be  termed 
cheerful,  the  sight  of  the  lesser  chamber  filled  me  wdth 
thoughts  of  madness. 

Of  course  I  lost. 

Never  shall  I  forget  that  room.  It  was  too  small  to 
accommodate  my  trunks  wnth  any  comfort,  so  I  left  them 
dow^nstairs  with  the  porter,  descending,  now  and  then, 
to  get  such  articles  as  I  required.  The  furniture,  wdiat 
there  was  of  it,  was  of  yellow  pine;  the  top  of  the 
dresser  was  scarred  with  the  marks  of  many  glasses  and 
many  bottles ;  the  lace  window  curtains  were  long,  hard 
and  of  a  wiry  stififness,  and  the  wall-paper  w^as  of  a 
scrambled  pattern  all  in  bilious  brown.     During  the  eve- 

152 


CHARLOTTESVILLE  AND  MONTICELLO 

ning  I  persuaded  my  companion  to  walk  with  me  through 
the  town,  and  once  I  got  him  out  I  kept  him  going  on  and 
on  through  shadowy  streets  unknown  to  us,  until,  ex- 
hausted, he  insisted  upon  returning  to  our  hostelry.  I 
fancy  that  there  are  picturesque  old  houses  on  the  out- 
skirts of  the  town,  but  with  that  wall  paper  and  a  terrible 
nostalgia  occupying  my  mind,  I  was  in  no  state  to  judge 
of  what  was  there. 

On  reaching  the  hotel  my  companion  went  to  bed,  but 
I  remained  until  late  in  the  office,  writing  letters,  do- 
ing anything  rather  than  go  up  to  my  room.  When 
at  last  I  did  ascend  I  planned  to  read,  but  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  light  was  bad,  so  presently  I  put  it  out  and 
lay  there  sleepless  and  miserable,  thinking  of  foolish 
things  that  I  have  said  and  done  during  a  life  rich  with 
such  items,  and  having  chills  and  fever  over  each  sepa- 
rate recollection.  How  I  drifted  off  to  sleep  at  last  I 
do  not  know ;  all  I  remember  is  waking  up  next  morning, 
leaping  out  of  bed  and  dressing  in  frantic  haste  to  get 
out  of  my  room.  There  was  but  one  thing  in  it  which 
did  not  utterly  offend  the  eye:  that  was  the  steam  pipe 
which  ascended  from  floor  to  ceiling  at  one  corner,  and 
which,  being  a  simple,  honest  metal  tube,  was  not  ob- 
jectionable. 

As  we  passed  through  the  office  on  our  way  to  break- 
fast, the  bus  man  entered,  and  in  a  loud,  retarded  chant 
proclaimed :     "Train  for  the  South !" 

The  impressive  tones  in  which  this  announcement  was 
delivered  seemed  to  call  for  a  sudden  stir,  a  rush  for  bags 

153 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

and  coats,  a  general  exodus,  but  no  one  in  the  office 
moved,  and  I  remember  feeling  sorry  for  the  bus  man  as 
he  turned  and  went  out  in  the  midst  of  a  crushing  anti- 
climax. 

"I  wonder,"  I  said  to  my  companion,  "if  anybody  ever 
gets  up  and  goes  when  that  man  calls  out  the  trains." 

*'l  don't  believe  so,"  he  replied.  "I  don't  think  he 
calls  trains  for  any  such  purpose.  He  only  warns  peo- 
ple so  they  will  expect  to  hear  the  train,  and  not  be  fright- 
ened when  it  goes  through." 

Thomas  Jefferson  is  most  widely  remembered,  I  sup- 
pose, as  the  author  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
the  third  President,  the  purchaser  of  Louisiana,  and  the 
unfortunate  individual  upon  whom  the  Democratic  party 
casts  the  blame  for  its  existence,  precisely  as  the  Repub- 
lican party  blames  itself  on  Washington  and  Lincoln — 
although  the  lamentable  state  into  which  both  parties 
have  fallen  is  actually  the  fault  of  living  men. 

It  is  significant,  however,  that  of  this  trio  of  Jeff'er- 
sonian  items,  Jefferson  himself  selected  but  one  to  be 
included  in  the  inscription  which  he  wrote  for  his  tomb- 
stone— a  modest  obelisk  on  the  grounds  at  Monticello. 
The  inscription  mentions  but  three  of  his  achievements : 
the  authorship  of  the  Declaration,  that  of  the  Virginia 
statute  for  religious  freedom,  and  the  fact  that  he  was 
"Father  of  the  L^niversity  of  Virginia." 

Regardless  of  other  accomplishments,  the  man  who 
built  the  university  and  the  house  at  ]\Ionticello  was 

154 


CHARLOTTESVILLE  AND  MONTICELLO 
great.  It  is  more  true  of  these  buildings  than  of  any 
others  I  have  seen  that  they  are  the  autobiography,  in 
brick  and  stone,  of  their  architect.  To  see  them,  to  see 
some  of  the  exquisitely  margined  manuscript  in  Jeffer- 
son's clean  handwriting,  preserved  in  the  university  li- 
brary, and  to  read  the  Declaration,  is  to  gain  a  grasp  of 
certain  sides  of  Jefferson's  nature  which  can  be  achieved 
in  no  other  way. 

Monticello  stands  on  a  lofty  hilltop,  with  vistas,  be- 
tween trees,  of  neighboring  valleys,  hills,  and  moun- 
tains. It  is  a  supremely  lovely  house,  unlike  any  other, 
and,  while  it  is  too  much  to  say  that  one  would  recognize 
it  as  the  house  of  the  writer  of  the  Declaration,  it  is  not 
too  m.uch  to  say  that,  once  one  does  know  it,  one  can  trace 
a  clear  affinity  resulting  from  a  common  origin — an 
affinity  much  more  apparent,  by  the  way,  than  may  be 
traced  between  the  work  of  Michelangelo  on  St.  Peter's 
at  Rome,  on  the  ceiling  of  the  Sistine  Chapel,  and  in  his 
"David." 

The  introductory  paragraph  to  the  Declaration 
ascends  into  the  body  of  the  document  as  gracefully  and 
as  certainly  as  the  wide  flights  of  easy  steps  ascend  to 
the  doors  of  Monticello;  the  long  and  beautifully  bal- 
anced paragraph  which  follows,  building  word  upon 
word  and  sentence  upon  sentence  into  a  central  state- 
ment, has  a  form  as  definite  and  graceful  as  that  of  the 
finely  proportioned  house;  the  numbered  paragraphs 
which  follow,  setting  forth  separate  details,  are  like 
rooms  within  the  house,  and — I  have  just  come  upon  the 

155 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

coincidence  with  a  pleasant  start  such  as  might  be  felt  by 
the  discoverer  of  some  complex  and  important  cipher — 
as  there  are  twenty-seven  of  the  numbered  paragraphs 
in  the  Declaration,  so  there  are  twenty-seven  rooms  in 
Monticello.  Last  of  all  there  are  two  little  phrases  in 
the  Declaration  (the  phrases  stating  that  we  shall  hold 
our  British  brethren  in  future  as  we  hold  the  rest  of 
mankind — "enemies  in  war;  in  peace,  friends"),  which 
I  would  liken  to  the  small  twin  buildings,  one  of  them 
Jefferson's  office,  the  other  that  of  the  overseer,  which 
stand  on  either  side  of  the  lawn  at  Alonticello,  at  some 
distance  from  the  house.  These  office  buildings  face, 
and  balance  upon  each  other,  and  upon  the  mansion,  but 
they  are  so  much  smaller  that  to  put  them  there  required 
daring,  while  to  make  them  "compose"  (as  painters  say) 
with  the  great  house,  required  the  almost  superhuman 
sense  of  symmetry  which  Jefferson  assuredly  possessed. 

The  present  owner  of  Alonticello  is  Mr.  Jefferson 
Monroe  Levy,  former  United  States  congressman  from 
New  York.  Mr.  Levy  is  a  Democrat  and  a  bachelor,  ac- 
cording to  the  Congressional  Directory,  which  states 
further  that  he  inherited  IMonticello  from  an  uncle.  Com- 
modore Uriah  P.  Levy,  U.  S.  N.,  and  that  the  latter  pur- 
chased the  place  in  1830  "at  the  suggestion  of  President 
Jackson." 

Dorothy  Dix,  writing  in  "Good  Housekeeping,"  tells 
a  tale  which  I  have  heard  repeatedly  of  the  acquisition 
of  Monticello  by  Uriah  Levy.     Says  Miss  Dix : 

"Monticello  was  sold  to  a  stranger,  and  Jefferson's 

156 


Monticello  stands  on  a  loft}^  hilltop,  with  vistas,  between  trees  of  neighboring 
valleys,  hills,  and  mountains 


CHARLOTTESVILLE  AND  MONTICELLO 

only  daughter,  Mrs.  Randolph,  widowed  and  with  eleven 
children,  was  left  homeless.  ...  A  subscription  of  three 
thousand  dollars  was  raised  ...  to  buy  back  the  house 
.  .  .  and  this  money  was  intrusted  to  a  young  relative  of 
the  Jeffersons'  to  convey  to  Charlottesville.  Traveling 
in  the  stagecoach  with  the  young  man  was  Captain 
Uriah  P.  Levy,  to  whom  he  confided  his  mission.  The 
young  man  became  intoxicated  and  dallied,  but  Captain 
Levy  hastened  on  to  Charlottesville,  and  purchased 
Monticello  for  two  thousand  five  hundred  dollars.  The 
next  day  the  repentant  and  sober  young  man  arrived  and 
besought  Captain  Levy  to  take  the  three  thousand  dol- 
lars ...  and  let  Monticello  go  back  to  the  Jefiferson 
family.  Captain  Levy  refused  to  part  with  his  bargain, 
but  at  his  death  he  willed  Monticello  to  'the  people  of 
the  Ignited  States  to  be  held  as  a  memorial  of  Thomas 
Jefferson'  .  .  .  The  Levy  heirs  contested  the  will,  and  it 
was  finally  decided  upon  a  technicality  that  'the  people  of 
the  United  States'  was  too  indefinite  a  term  to  make  the 
bequest  binding,  and  the  estate  passed  into  the  hands  of 
the  Levys,  and  so  to  its  present  owner.  .  .  ." 

In  a  biographical  note  upon  the  latter,  the  Congres- 
sional Directory  states  that  the  house  is  "kept  open  to 
the  public  all  the  year."  ]\Iy  companion  and  I  were  ad- 
mitted to  the  grounds,  but  were  informed  that,  though 
the  building  was  unoccupied,  no  one  was  permitted  to 
enter.  While  we  were  in  the  vicinity  of  the  house  we 
were  attended  by  one  of  the  men  employed  on  the  place, 
who  told  us  that  when  people  were  allowed  to  roam 

157 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

about  at  will,  there  had  been  much  vandalism;  ivy  had 
been  pulled  from  the  walls,  shrubbery  broken,  pieces  of 
brick  chipped  out  of  the  steps,  and  teeth  knocked  from 
the  heads  of  the  marble  lions  which  flank  them. 

Of  recent  years  there  has  been  on  foot  a  movement, 
launched,  I  believe,  by  Mrs.  Martin  W.  Littleton,  of  New 
York,  to  influence  the  Government  to  purchase  Monti- 
cello  from  its  present  owner.  Tt  is  difficult  to  see  pre- 
cisely how  Mr.  Levy  could  be  forced  to  part  with  his 
property,  if  he  did  not  wish  to.  Nevertheless  public 
sentiment  on  this  subject  has  become  so  strong  that  he 
has  agreed  to  let  the  Government  have  Monticello  ''at  a 
price" — so,  at  least,  I  was  informed  in  Charlottesville. 


158 


CHAPTER  XV 
THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  VIRGINIA 

The  opening  of  the  University  of  Virginia  was  an  event  of  prime  im- 
portance for  the  higher  education  in  the  whole  country,  and  really  marks 
a  new  era. 

— Charles  Forster  Smith. 

LIKE  Monticello,  the  buildings  of  the  University 
of  Virginia  are  those  of  an  intellectual,  a  classi- 
cist, a  purist,  and,  like  it,  they  might  have  been 
austere  but  for  the  warmth  of  their  red  brick  and  the 
glow  of  their  white-columned  porticos.  But  they  are 
cheerful  buildings,  which,  individually  and  as  a  group, 
attain  a  geometrical  yet  soft  perfection,  a  supreme  har- 
mony of  form  and  color. 

The  principal  buildings  are  grouped  about  a  large 
campus,  called  the  Lawn,  which  is  dominated  by  the  ro- 
tunda, suggesting  in  its  outlines  the  Pantheon  at  Rome. 
From  the  rotunda,  at  either  side,  starts  a  white-columned 
arcade  connecting  the  various  houses  which  are  dis- 
tributed at  graceful  intervals  along  the  margins  of  the 
rectangular  lawn,  above  which  loom  the  tops  of  even 
rows  of  beautiful  old  trees.  Flanking  the  buildings  of 
the  lawn,  and  reached  by  brick  walks  which  pass  be- 
tween the  famous  serpentine  walls  (walls  but  one  brick 
thick  which  support  themselves  on  the  snake-fence  prin- 
ciple, by  progressing  in  a  series  of  reverse  curves),  are 
the  "ranges":  solid  rows  of  one-story  student  dormito- 

159 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

ries  built  of  brick  and  fronted  by  colonnades  which  com- 
mand other  lawns  and  other  trees. 

With  a  single  exception,  restorations  and  additions  to 
the  university  have  been  made  with  re\erence  and  taste, 
and  the  Brooks  Museum,  the  one  architectural  horror  of 
the  place,  fortunately  does  not  stand  upon  the  lawn. 
Since  it  is  said  that  beauty  could  not  exist  were  there  not 
ugliness  for  contrast,  this  building  may  have  its  uses; 
certainly,  after  a  glance  at  it,  one  looks  back  with  re- 
newed delight  at  the  structures  of  the  central  group. 

Most  superb  of  all,  always  there  hangs  at  night,  abo\-e 
the  buildings  and  the  tree-tops,  a  glorious  full  moon. 
At  least  I  suppose  it  always  hangs  there,  for  though  it 
seemed  to  us  very  wonderful,  every  one  else  seemed  used 
to  it. 

Like  Venice,  the  University  of  Virginia  should  first 
be  seen  by  moonlight.  There  could  not  have  been  a 
finer  moonlit  night,  I  thought,  than  that  cold,  crisp  one 
upon  which  my  companion  stood  for  two  hours  beside 
the  rotunda,  gazing  at  the  lawn  and  drawing  it,  its  frosty 
grass  and  trees  decked  with  diamonds,  its  white  columns 
standing  out  softly  from  their  shadow  backgrounds  like 
phosporescent  ghosts  in  the  luminous  blue  darkness. 
Until  I  was  nearly  frozen  I  stayed  there  with  him. 
That  drawing  cost  him  one  of  the  worst  colds  he  ever 
had. 

The  university  ought  to  have,  and  has,  many  tra- 
ditions, and  life  there  ought  to  be,  and  is,  different  from 
life  in  any  other  college.     Jefferson  brought  from  Italy 

iGo 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  VIRGINIA 

the  men  who  carved  the  capitals  of  the  columns  (the  de- 
scendants of  some  of  these  Italian  workmen  live  in 
Charlottesville  to-day),  and  when  the  columns  were  in 
place  he  brought  from  Europe  the  professors  to  form 
the  faculty,  creating  what  was  practically  a  small  Eng- 
lish university  in  the  United  States.  Never  until,  a 
dozen  years  ago,  Dr.  E.  A.  Alderman  became  president, 
had  there  been  such  an  office;  before  that  time  the  uni- 
versity had  a  rector,  and  the  duties  of  president  were 
performed  by  a  chairman  of  the  faculty,  elected  by  the 
faculty  from  among  its  members.  This  was  the  first 
university  to  adopt  the  elective  system,  permitting  the 
students,  as  Jefferson  wrote,  "uncontrolled  choice  in  the 
lectures  they  shall  attend,"  instead  of  prescribing  one- 
course  of  reading  for  all.  No  less  important,  the 
University  of  Virginia  was  the  first  college  to  introduce 
(1842)  the  honor  system,  and  still  has  the  most  com- 
plete honor  system  to  be  found  among  American  col- 
leges. This  system  is  an  outgrowth  of  the  Jeffer- 
sonian  idea  of  student  self-government;  under  it  each 
student  signs,  with  examination  papers,  a  pledge  that 
he  has  neither  given  nor  received  assistance.  That  is 
found  sufficient;  students  are  not  watched,  nor  need 
they  be.  With  time  this  system  has  been  extended, 
so  that  it  now  covers  not  only  examinations,  but  many 
departments  of  college  life,  eliminating  professionalism 
in  athletics  and  plagiarism  in  literary  work,  and  result- 
ing in  a  delightful  mutual  confidence  between  the  student 
body  and  the  faculty. 

161 


AAIERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Madison  and  ^Monroe  were  active  members  of  the 
university's  first  board  of  visitors;  the  first  college  Y.  M. 
C.  A.  was  started  there;  and  among  many  famous  men 
who  have  attended  the  university  may  be  mentioned  Ed- 
gar Allan  Poe,  Thomas  Nelson  Page,  and  Thomas 
Woodrow  Wilson,  whose  name  appears  thus  upon  the 
"University  Magazine"  for  1879-80,  as  one  of  its  three 
editors.  The  ill-starred  Poe  attended  the  university  for 
only  one  year,  at  the  end  of  which  time  his  adopted 
father,  Mr.  Allan,  of  Richmond,  withdrew  him  because 
of  debts  he  had  contracted  while  accfuiring  his  education 
in  gambling  and  drinking  champagne.  Poe's  former 
room,  No.  13  West  Range,  is  now  the  office  of  the 
magazine. 

The  clean,  lovely  manuscript  in  Jefferson's  handwrit- 
ing, of  the  first  Anglo-Saxon  grammar  written  in  the 
United  States,  is  to  be  seen  in  the  university  library; 
Jefferson  was  Vice-President  of  the  United  States  when 
he  wrote  it;  he  put  Anglo-Saxon  in  the  first  curriculum 
of  the  university,  and  it  has  been  taught  there  ever  since. 
In  a  note  which  is  a  part  of  the  manuscript,  he  advocates 
the  study  of  Anglo-Saxon  as  an  introduction  to  modern 
English  on  the  ground  that  though  about  half  the  words 
in  our  present  language  are  deri\cd  from  Latin  and 
Greek,  these  being  the  scholarly  words,  the  other  half, 
the  words  we  use  most  often,  are  Anglo-Saxon. 

Before  the  w^ar  it  was  not  uncommon  for  students  at 
the  university  to  have  their  negro  body  servants  with 
them,  and  it  has  occasionally  happened  since  that  some 

162 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  VIRGINIA 

young  sprig  of  southern  aristocracy  has  come  to  college 
thus  attended. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  and  characteristic  feature 
of  student  life  to-day,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
stray  visitor,  is  the  formal  attitude  of  students  to- 
ward one  another.  There  is  no  easy-going  casualness 
between  them,  no  calling  back  and  forth,  no  "hello,"  by 
way  of  greeting.  They  pass  each  other  on  the  walks 
either  without  speaking  (men  have  been  punished  at 
the  university  by  being  ignored  by  the  entire  student 
body),  or  if  they  do  greet  each  other  the  customary 
saluation  is  "How  are  you,  sir?"  or  "How  are  you, 
gentlemen  ?"  First-year  men  are  expected  to  wear  hats, 
and  not  to  speak  to  upper  classmen  until  they  have  been 
spoken  to;  and,  though  there  is  no  hazing  at  the  uni- 
versity, woe  betide  them  if  they  do  not  heed  these  rules. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  university  there  was  an  effort 
to  exercise  restraint  over  students,  to  make  them  account 
for  their  goings  and  comings,  and  to  prevent  their  going 
to  taverns  or  betting  upon  horse  races.  Also  they  were 
obliged  to  wear  a  uniform.  The  severity  was  so  great 
that  they  appealed  to  Jefferson,  who  sided  with  them. 
He,  however,  died  in  the  same  year,  and  friction  pre- 
vailed for  perhaps  a  decade  longer,  with  many  student 
disorders,  culminating  in  the  shooting  of  a  professor  by 
a  student.  In  1840  the  students  were  at  last  granted  full 
freedom,  and  two  years  later  the  honor  system  was 
adopted. 

During  the  university's  first  years  young  men  from 

163 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

the  far  South,  where  duehng  was  especially  prevalent, 
did  not  come  in  large  numbers  to  the  University  of  Vir- 
ginia, but  went,  as  a  rule,  to  the  northern  colleges, 
but  about  the  middle  of  the  century,  as  feeling  be- 
tween North  and  South  over  taxation,  States'  Rights 
and  slavery  became  more  acute,  these  men  began  to  flock 
to  the  college  at  Charlottesville.  Between  1850  and 
i860  the  university  almost  doubled  in  size,  and  at  about 
the  same  time  there  developed  a  good  deal  of  dueling  be- 
tween students. 

When  the  War  ended  mau}^  men  who  had  gone  into 
the  Confederate  army  at  sixteen  or  seventeen  years  of 
age  came  to  Charlottesville  to  complete  their  education. 
The  hard  life  of  the  army  had  made  some  of  these  into  a 
wild  lot,  and  there  was  a  great  deal  of  gambling  and 
drinking  during  their  time,  and  also  after  it,  for  several 
succeeding  generations  of  students  looked  up  to  the  ex- 
soldiers  as  heroes,  and  carried  on  the  unfortunate  tradi- 
tions left  by  them  at  the  university.  In  the  nineties, 
however,  a  change  came,  and  though  there  is  still  some 
drinking  and  gambling,  it  is  doubtful  whether  such  vices 
are  now  more  prevalent  at  the  University  of  Virginia 
than  at  many  other  colleges.  The  honor  system  has 
never  been  extended  to  cover  these  points. 

It  is  related  that,  in  Poe's  time,  gambling  became  such 
a  serious  obstacle  to  discipline  and  work  that  the  uni- 
versity authorities  set  the  town  marshal  after  a  score  or 
so  of  gambling  students,  Poe  among  them,  whereupon 
these  students  fled  to  the  Ragged  Mountains,  near  by, 

164 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  VIRGINIA 

and  remained  for  two  weeks,  during  which  time  Poe  is 
said  to  have  mightily  entertained  them  with  stories  and 
prophecies,  including  a  forecast  of  the  Civil  War,  in 
which,  he  declared,  two  of  the  youths  present  would  fight 
on  opposite  sides. 

The  Poe  tradition  is  kept  vigorously  alive  at  the  uni- 
versity. Not  long  ago  a  member  of  the  Raven  Society, 
one  of  the  rather  too  numerous  student  organizations, 
discovered  the  burial  place  of  Poe's  mother,  who  was 
an  actress,  and  who  died  penniless  in  Richmond  at  the 
age  of  twenty-four  and  was  buried  with  the  destitute. 
By  a  happy  inspiration  a  fund  was  raised  among  the 
students  for  the  erection  of  a  monument  to  her — an  ex- 
ample of  fine  and  chivalrous  sentiment  on  the  part  of 
these  young  men,  which,  one  feels,  is  somehow  delicately 
intertwined  with  the  traditions  of  the  honor  system. 

The  Poe  professor  of  English  at  the  university,  when 
we  were  there,  was  Dr.  C.  Alphonso  Smith,  who  has 
since  taken  the  professorship  of  English  at  the  United 
States  Naval  Academy.  By  a  coincidence  which  has 
proved  a  happy  one  for  those  who  love  the  stories  of  the 
late  Sidney  Porter  (O.  Henry),  Dr.  Smith  grew  up 
as  a  boy  with  Porter,  in  Greensboro,  North  Carolina. 
Because  of  this,  and  also  because  of  Dr.  Smith's  own 
gifts  as  a  writer  and  an  analyst,  it  is  peculiarly  fitting 
that  he  should  have  undertaken  the  work  which  has  oc- 
cupied him  for  several  years  past,  the  result  of  which 
has  recently  been  given  to  us  in  the  form  "The  O.  Henry 
Biography." 

165 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Dr.  Smith  was  Roosevelt  exchange  professor  at  the 
University  of  BerHn  in  1910-11,  holding  the  chair  of 
American  History  and  Institutions.  While  occupying 
that  professorship  he  met  the  Kaiser. 

*'I  talked  with  him  twice,"  he  said,  "and  upon  the 
second  occasion  under  very  delightful  circumstances, 
for  I  w^as  invilcd  to  dinner  at  the  Palace  at  Potsdam,  and 
was  the  only  guest,  the  Kaiser,  Kaiserin,  and  Princess 
Victoria  Luise  being  present. 

''The  Kaiser  is,  of  course,  a  very  magnetic  man. 
His  eyes  are  his  most  remarkable  feature.  They  are 
very  large,  brilliant,  and  sparkling,  and  he  rolls  them 
in  a  manner  most  unusual.  While  he  is  always  the 
king  and  the  soldier,  he  can  be  genial  and  charming. 
One  might  expect  a  man  in  his  position  to  be  blase,  but 
that,  most  of  all,  is  what  he  is  not.  He  is  like  a  boy 
in  his  vitality  and  vividness,  and  he  has  a  great  and  per- 
sistent intellectual  curiosity.  It  is  this,  I  think,  which 
used  to  cause  him  to  be  compared  with  Colonel  Roose- 
velt. Both  would  like  to  know  all  things,  and  both  have 
had,  and  have  exercised  more,  perhaps,  than  any  other 
two  living  men,  the  power  to  bring  to  themselves  the 
central  figures  in  all  manner  of  world  events,  and  thus 
learn  at  first  hand,  from  acknowledged  authorities,  about 
the  subjects  that  interest  them — which  is  to  say,  every- 
thing. 

"He  frankly  admired  America.  I  don't  mean  that 
he  said  so  for  the  sake  of  courtesy  to  me,  but  that  he 
has — or  did  have,  then — an  immense  and  rather  roman- 

166 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  VIRGINIA 

tic  interest  in  this  country.  A  great  many  Germans 
used  to  resent  this  trait  in  him.  America  held  in  his 
mind  the  same  romantic  position  that  the  idea  of 
monarchy  did  in  the  minds  of  some  of  us.  I  mean  that 
the  average  American  went  for  romance  to  stories  of 
monarchy,  but  that  the  Kaiser,  being  used  to  the  mon- 
archial  idea,  found  his  romance  over  here.  (I  am,  of 
course,  speaking  of  him  as  he  was  five  or  six  years  ago.) 
He  wished  to  come  to  America,  but  was  never  able  to  do 
so,  since  German  law  forbids  it.  And,  perhaps  because 
he  could  not  come,  America  was  the  more  a  sort  of 
dream  to  him. 

''He  asked  me  about  some  of  the  things  in  Berlin 
which  I  had  noticed  as  being  different  from  things  at 
home,  and  when  I  mentioned  the  way  that  history  was 
kept  alive  in  the  very  streets  of  Berlin,  his  eyes  danced, 
and  he  said  that  was  one  of  the  things  he  had  tried 
to  accomplish  by  the  erection  of  the  numerous  monu- 
ments which  have  been  placed  in  Berlin  during  his  reign. 
He  told  me  of  other  means  by  which  history  was  kept 
alive  in  Germany:  among  them  that  every  officer  has 
to  know  in  detail  the  history  of  his  regiment,  and  that 
German  regiments  always  celebrate  the  anniversaries  of 
their  great  days. 

"He  speaks  English  without  an  accent,  though  we 
might  say  that  he  spoke  it  with  an  English  accent.  He 
told  me  that  he  had  learned  English  before  he  learned 
German,  and  had  also  caused  his  children  to  learn  it 
first.     He  reads  Mark  Twain,  or  had  read  him,  and  he 

167 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

enjoyed  him,  Init  he  said  that  when  he  met  Mark  Twain 
the  latter  had  Httle  or  nothing  to  say,  and  that  it  was 
only  with  the  greatest  difficulty  that  he  got  him  to  talk 
at  all.  He  subscribed,  he  told  me,  to  'Harper's  Maga- 
zine,' and  he  was  in  the  habit  of  reading  short  stories 
aloud  to  his  family,  in  English.  He  admired  the  Amer- 
ican short  story,  and  I  remember  thai  he  declared: 
'The  Americans  know  how  to  plunge  into  a  short  story. 
We  Germans  are  too  long-winded.'  " 

When  Professor  Smith  talks  about  the  Kaiser,  you 
say  to  yourself:  'T  know  that  it  is  growing  late,  but 
I  cannot  bear  to  leave  until  I  have  heard  the  rest  of 
this";  when  he  drifts  presently  to  O.  Henry,  you  say 
the  same;  and  so  it  is  always,  no  matter  what  his  sub- 
ject. At  last,  however,  the  grandfather's  clock  in  the 
hall  below  his  study  sends  up  a  stern  message  which  is 
not  to  be  mistaken,  whereupon  you  arise  reluctantly 
from  your  comfortable  chair,  spill  the  cigar  ashes  out  of 
your  lap  onto  the  rug,  dust  off  your  clothing,  and  take 
your  leave.  Nor  is  your  regret  at  departing  lessened 
by  the  fact  that  you  must  go  to  your  bilious-colored 
bedroom  in  the  New  Gleason,  and  that  you  will  not  see 
the  university,  or  Professor  C.  Alphonso  Smith,  or  Mrs. 
Smith  again,  because  you  are  leaving  upon  the  morrow. 

So  it  must  always  be  with  the  itinerant  illustrator  and 
writer.  They  are  forever  finding  new  and  lovely  scenes 
only  to  leave  them;  forever  making  new  and  charming 
friends  only  to  part  with  them,  faring  forth  again  into 
the  unknown. 

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B' 


CHAPTER  XVI 
FOX-HUNTING  IN  VIRGINIA 

Better    to    hunt    in    fields    for    health    unbought 
Than  fee  the  doctor  for  a  nauseous  draught. 
The  wise  for  cure  on  exercise  depend; 
God  never  made  his  work  for  man  to  mend. 

— Dryden. 

IT  is  my  impression  that  the  dining-car  conductor  on 
the  Chesapeake  &  Ohio  train  by  which  we  left 
Charlottesville  was  puzzled  when  I  asked  his  name; 
but  if  he  sees  this  and  remembers  the  incident  he  will 
not  know  that  I  did  so  because  I  wished  here  to  men- 
tion him  as  a  humane  citizen.  His  name  is  C.  G. 
Mitchell,  and  he  was  so  accommodating  as  to  serve  a 
light  meal,  after  hours,  when  he  did  not  have  to,  to  two 
hungry  men  who  needed  it.  If  travel  has  taught  my 
companion  and  me  anything,  it  has  taught  us  that  not 
all  dining-car  conductors  are  like  that.  Nor,  I  judge, 
can  all  dining-car  conductors  play  the  violin,  pleasantly, 
in  off  hours,  as  does  Mr.  Mitchell.  Better  one  merciful 
dining-car  conductor  than  twenty  who  wear  white  car- 
nations at  their  left  lapels,  but  wear  no  hearts  below 
them! 

The  road  by  which  we  drove  from  the  railroad 
into  the  fastnesses  of  Loudon  County,  where,  near  the 
little  settlement  of  Upperville,  the  race  meet  of  the 

169 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Piedmont  Hunt  was  to  be  held,  suggested  other  times 
and  other  manners,  for  though  we  rode  in  a  motor  car, 
and  though  we  passed  another  now  and  then,  machines 
were  far  outnumbered  by  the  horses  which,  under  sad- 
dle, or  hitched  to  buggies,  surreys,  and  carts  of  all  de- 
scriptions, were  heading  toward  the  meeting  place. 

On  these  roads,  one  felt,  the  motor  was  an  outsider; 
this  was  the  kingdom  of  the  horse  that  we  were  visit- 
ing; soft  dirt  roads  were  there  for  him  to  trot  and 
gallop  on,  and  fences  of  wood  or  stone,  free  from  barbed 
wire,  were  everywhere,  for  him  to  jump. 

Throughout  the  week  we  had  looked  forward  to  this 
day,  and  even  more,  perhaps,  to  the  party  which,  if  we 
could  get  back  to  Washington  that  night,  was  to  follow 
it;  wherefore  the  first  thing  we  did  on  reaching  a  place 
where  information  was  obtainable  was  to  inquire  about 
facilities  for  leaving.  Herein  my  companion  had  the 
advantage  of  me,  for  there  was  nothing  to  prevent  his 
departing  immediately  after  the  races,  whereas  T  must 
remain  behind  for  an  hour  or  two,  to  learn  something  of 
fox-hunting  as  practised  in  this  region. 

By  motoring  immediateh^  after  the  races  to  a  neigh- 
boring town — Bluemont  if  I  remember  rightly — and 
there  taking  an  interurban  trolley  to  some  other  place, 
and  changing  cars,  and  going  without  his  dinner,  my 
companion  found  that  he  could  get  to  Washington  by 
nine  o'clock.  My  case  was  different.  Should  I  be  de- 
layed more  than  two  hours  I  could  not  get  away  at  all 
that  night,  but  must  miss  the  much  anticipated  party 

170 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  VIRGINIA 
altogether;  and,  though  my  companion  seemed  to  view 
this  possibility  with  perfect  equanimity,  my  memories 
of  the  charming  lady  whom  we  were  to  meet  at  the 
stage  door,  after  the  performance,  were  too  clear  to 
permit  of  indifference  in  me.     The  trolley  my  compan- 
ion meant  to  catch  was,  however,  the  last  one;  my 
only  hope,  therefore,  was  to  motor  a  distance  of  per- 
haps a  dozen  miles,  over  roads  which  I  was  frankly 
told  were  ''middling  to  bad,"  and  try  to  catch  a  tram 
at  The  Plains  station.     If  I  missed  this  train,  I  was  lost, 
and  must  spend  a  solitary  night  in  such  a  room  as  I 
might  be  able  to  find  in  a  strange  village.     That  possi- 
bility did  not  appeal  to  me.     I  began  to  wish  that  there 
was  no  such  thing  as  fox-hunting,  or  that,  there  being 
such  a  thing,  I  had  chosen  to  ignore  it. 

"Now,"  said  my  companion  cheerfully,  ''we  '11  tele- 
graph her." 

At  a  telegraph  office  he  seized  the  pencil  and  wrote 

the  following  message: 

Will  call  for  you  to-night  after  performance. 

To  this  he  signed  his  own  name. 

"What  about  me?"  I  suggested,  after  glancing  over 
his  shoulder  at  the  message. 

"Oh  well,"  said  he,  "there  's  no  use  in  going  into  all 
that  in  a  telegram.  It 's  sufficient  to  let  her  know  that 
one  of  us  is  coming." 

''But  I  proposed  this  party."  ' 

171 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

*'Well,"  he  gave  in,  with  an  air  of  pained  patience, 
'*what  shall  I  say,  then?  Shall  I  add  that  you  are  un- 
avoidably detained?" 

''Not  by  a  jugful!"  I  returned.  "Add  that  I  hope  to 
get  there  too,  and  will  make  every  effort  to  do  so." 

He  wrote  it  out,  sighing  as  he  did  so.  Then,  by  care- 
ful cutting,  he  got  it  down  to  fourteen  words.  By  that 
time  the  operator  could  n't  read  it,  so  he  wrote  it  out 
again — gloomily. 

This  accomplished,  we  matched  coins  to  see  who 
should  pay  for  the  message.     He  lost. 

''All  right !"  he  said.  "I  '11  pay  for  it,  but  it 's  all  fool- 
ishness to  send  such  a  long  telegram. 

"No,"  I  returned,  as  we  left  the  office  and  got  into  the 
machine,  "it  is  not  foolishness.  H  I  can  make  life  a 
little  brighter  for  a  beautiful  woman,  by  adding  a  few 
words  to  a  telegram,  and  sticking  you  for  it,  I  shall  do  it 
every  time." 

He  looked  away  over  the  fields  and  did  not  answer 
me.  So  w^e  drove  on  in  silence  to  where  stands  the  beau- 
tiful manor  house  called  Huntland,  which  is  the  resi- 
dence of  Mr.  Joseph  B.  Thomas,  M.  F.  H.  of  the  Pied- 
mont Hunt. 

There  is,  I  have  been  told,  no  important  hunt  in  the 
United  States  in  which  the  master  of  foxhounds  is  not 
the  chief  financial  supporter,  the  sport  being  a  very 
costly  one.  Of  American  hunts,  the  Middlesex,  in  Mas- 
sachusetts, of  which  Mr.  A.  Henry  Higginson  is  M. 
F.  H.,  has  the  reputation  of  being  the  best  appointed. 

172 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  VIRGINIA 

The  Piedmont  Hunt  is,  however,  one  of  the  half  dozen 
leading  organizations  of  the  kind,  and  it  is  difficult  in- 
deed to  imagine  a  finer. 

In  a  well-kept  park  near  Mr.  Thomas's  house  stand 
extensive  English-looking  buildings  of  brick  and 
stucco,  which,  viewed  from  a  distance,  suggest  a  beau- 
tiful country  house,  and  which,  visited,  teach  one  that 
certain  favored  hounds  and  horses  in  this  world  live 
much  better  than  certain  human  beings.  One  building 
is  given  over  to  the  kennels,  the  other  the  stables ;  each 
has  a  large  sunlit  court,  and  each  is  as  beautiful  and 
as  clean  as  a  fine  house — a  house  full  of  trophies,  hunt- 
ing equipment,  and  the  pleasant  smell  of  well-cared-for 
saddlery.  In  a  rolling  meadow,  not  far  distant,  is  the 
race  course,  all  green  turf,  and  here,  soon  after  luncheon, 
gathered  an  extraordinary  diversified  crowd. 

For  the  most  part  the  crowd  was  a  fashionable  one: 
men  and  women  of  the  type  whose  photographs  appear 
in  "Vogue"  and  "Vanity  Fair,"  and  whose  costumes 
were  like  fashion  suggestions  for  "sport  clothes"  in 
those  publications.  One  party  was  stationed  on  the 
top  of  an  old-time  mail  coach,  the  boot  of  which  bore 
the  significant  initials  "F.  F.  V."— standing,  as  even 
benighted  Northerners  must  be  aware,  for  "First  Fam- 
ilies of  Virginia";  others  were  in  a  line  of  motors 
and  heterogeneous  horse-drawn  vehicles,  parked  beside 
the  course;  and  scattered  through  the  gathering,  like 
brushmarks  on  an  impressionist  canvas,  one  saw  the 
brilliant  color  of  pink  coats.     Handsome  hunters  were 

173 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

being  ridden  or  led  about  by  negro  grooms,  and  others 
kept  arriving,  ridden  in  by  farmers  and  breeders,  while 
here  and  there  one  saw  a  woman  rider,  her  hair  tightly 
drawn  back  under  a  mannish  derby  hat,  her  figure 
slender  and  graceful  in  a  severely-cut  habit  coat. 
Jumbled  together  in  a  great  green  meadow  under  a 
sweet  autumnal  sun,  these  things  made  a  picture  of 
what,  I  am  persuaded,  is  the  ultimate  in  extravagant 
American  country  life.  There  was  something,  too, 
about  this  blending  of  fashionables  and  farmers,  which 
made  me  think  of  the  theater;  for  there  is,  in  truth,  a 
distinct  note  of  histrionism  about  many  of  the  rich 
Americans  who  "go  in  for"  elaborate  ruralness,  and  there 
is  a  touch  of  it  very  often,  also,  about  ''horsey"  people. 
They  like  to  'iook  the  part,"  and  they  dress  it  with  no 
less  care  than  they  exercise,  at  other  seasons,  in  dress- 
ing the  parts  of  opera-going  cosmopolites,  or  wealthy 
loungers  at  the  beaches.  In  other  words,  these  fash- 
ionables had  the  overtrained  New  York  look  all  over 
them,  and  the  local  rustics  set  them  off  as  effectively 
as  the  villainous  young  squire  of  the  Drury  Lane 
melodrama  is  set  off  by  contrast  with  honest  old  Jas- 
per, the  miller,  who  wears  a  smock,  and  comes  to  the 
Great  House  to  beg  the  Young  Master  to  ''make  an 
honest  woman"  of  poor  Rose,  the  fairest  lass  in  all 
Hampshire. 

About  the  races  themselves  there  was  something  fasci- 
natingly nonprofessional.  They  bore  the  same  relation 
to  great  races  on  great  tracks  that  a  very  fine  perform- 

1/4 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  VIRGINIA 

ance  of  a  play  by  amateurs  might  bear  to  a  professional 
performance. 

First  came  a  two-mile  steeplechase,  with  brush 
hurdles.  Then,  after  a  couple  of  minor  events,  a  four- 
mile  point-to-point  race  for  hunters  ridden  by  gentle- 
men in  hunt  uniform.  This  was  as  stiff  a  race  for 
both  horses  and  riders  as  I  have  ever  seen,  and  it  was 
very  picturesque  to  watch  the  pink  coats  careering  up 
hill  and  down  dale,  now  over  a  tall  stone  wall,  now  over 
a  brook  or  a  snake  fence;  and  when  a  rider  went  head 
over  heels,  and  lay  still  upon  the  ground  where  he  fell, 
while  his  horse  cantered  along  after  the  field,  in  that 
aimless  and  pathetic  way  that  riderless  horses  have,  one 
had  a  real  sensation — which  w^as  the  pleasanter  for 
knowing,  a  fevv^  minutes  later,  that  the  horseman  had 
only  broken  an  arm. 

Next  was  run  a  rollicking  race  for  horses  owned  by 
farmers,  and  others,  whose  land  is  hunted  over  by  the 
Piedmont  and  Middleburg  foxhounds ;  and  last  occurred 
a  great  comedy  event — a  mule  race,  free  for  all,  in  which 
one  of  the  hunting  men,  in  uniform,  made  such  a  hand- 
some showing  against  a  rabble  of  white  and  colored 
boys,  all  of  them  yelling,  all  of  them  beating  their  long- 
eared  animals  with  sticks,  that  he  would  have  won,  had 
he  not  deliberately  pulled  his  mount  and  "thrown"  the 
race. 

The  last  event  was  not  yet  finished  when  my  com- 
panion, who  had  become  nervous  about  his  interurban 
trolley,  got  into  a  machine  to  drive  to  Bluemont. 

175 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

"Of  course,"  he  said  as  we  parted,  "we  '11  miss  you 
to-night." 

"Oh,"  I  said,  "I  hope  not.     I  expect  to  get  there." 

"I  don't  see  how  you  can  make  it,"  said  he.  "You 
have  a  lot  of  material  to  gather." 

"I  shall  work  fast." 

"Well,"  said  he,  trying  to  speak  like  the  voice  of  Con- 
science, "I  hope  you  won't  forget  your  duty — that 's  all." 

"I  proposed  this  party  to-night.  It  is  my  duty  to  be 
there." 

"You  did  n't  make  any  definite  engagement,"  said  he, 
"and,  besides,  your  first  duty  is  to  your  editors  and  your 
readers." 

Having  tossed  me  this  disgusting  thought,  he  departed 
in  a  cloud  of  dust,  leaving  me  sad  and  alone,  but  not  yet 
altogether  in  despair. 

The  last  race  over,  I  hastened  to  Mr.  Thomas's  house, 
which,  by  this  time,  looked  like  an  old  English  hunt- 
ing print  come  to  life,  for  it  was  now  crowded  with  pink 
coats.  For  most  of  the  technical  information  contained 
in  this  chapter  I  am  indebted  to  various  gentlemen 
whom  I  encountered  there. 

In  Virginia — which  is  the  oldest  fox-hunting  State  in 
the  Union,  the  sport  having  been  practised  there  for 
nearly  two  centuries — the  words  "hunt"  or  "hunting" 
never  by  any  chance  apply  to  shooting,  but  always  refer 
to  hunting  the  fox  with  horse  and  hounds.  A  "hunter" 
is  not  a  man  but  a  horse ;  a  huntsman  is  not  a  member 
of  the  hunt  but  a  hunt-servant;  the  "field"  may  be  the 

176 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  VIRGINIA 

terrain  ridden  over  by  the  hunt,  or  it  may  be  the  group 
of  riders  following  the  hounds — "hunt  followers," 
"hunting  men,"  and  "hunting  women." 

The  following  items,  from  "Baily's  Hunting  Direc- 
tory," a  British  annual,  give  some  idea  of  certain  pri- 
mary formalities  and  practicalities  of  hunting: 

HINTS  TO  BEGINNERS 

Buy  the  best  horses  you  can  afford ;  but  remember  that  a  work- 
ably  sound  horse,  though  blemished  or  a  bit  gone  in  the  wind,  will 
give  you  plenty  of  fun,  if  you  do  not  knock  him  about. 

Obey  the  Master's  orders  without  argument;  in  the  field  he  is 
supreme. 

Hold  up  your  hat  if  you  view  the  fox  away ;  do  not  halloa.  If 
none  of  the  hunt  servants  see  your  uplifted  hat,  go  and  tell  the 
nearest  of  them. 

Ride  fast  at  water ;  if  hounds  clear  a  brook  a  horse  has  a  good 
chance  of  doing  so.  Steady  your  horse  and  let  him  take  his  own 
pace  at  big  timber. 

Keep  well  away  from  hounds,  and  down  wind  of  them  at  a 
check.  The  steam  from  heated  horses  adds  a  fresh  difficulty  to 
recovery  of  lost  scent.  Look  out  for  signs  that  may  indicate  the 
whereabovits  or  passing  of  the  fox.  Huddling  sheep,  staring  cat- 
tle, chattering  magpies,  circling  rooks,  may  mean  that  they  see, 
or  have  just  seen,  the  fox. 

Never  lark  over  fences ;  it  tires  your  horse  needlessly  and  may 
cause  damage  and  annoy  the  farmer. 

Never  take  a  short  cut  through  a  covert  that  is  likely  to  be 
drawn  during  the  day;  and  keep  well  away  from  a  covert  that 

177 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

hounds  are  drawing  if  you  start  for  home  before  the  day's  sport 
is  over,  lest  you  head  the  fox. 

Always  await  your  turn  at  a  gate  or  gap ;  do  not  try  and  push 
forward  in  a  crowd. 

If  you  follow  a  pilot,  do  not  "ride  in  his  pocket" ;  give  him 
plenty  of  room,  say  fifteen  lengths,  at  fences,  or  if  he  falls  you 
might  jump  on  him. 

If  your  horse  kicks,  tie  a  knot  of  red  ribbon  in  his  tail.  N.  B. — 
Do  not  be  guilty  of  using  this  "rogue's  badge"  for  the  sake  of 
getting  room  in  a  crowd,  as  some  men  have  been  known  to  do. 

If  a  man  is  down  and  in  danger  of  being  kicked,  put  your  own 
saddle  over  his  head. 

HINTS  CONCERNING  THE  HUNTER 
It  should  be  remembered  that  in  the  ordinary  routine  the  horse 
is  fed  three  or  four  times  a  day.  On  a  hunting  day  he  gets  one 
good  feed  early  in  the  morning  and  loses  one  or  two  feeds. 
Moreover,  he  is  doing  hard  work  for  hours  together,  with  a 
weight  on  his  back.  Carry  a  couple  of  forage  biscuits  in  your 
pocket  to  give  him  during  the  day.  Also  get  olT  and  relieve  him 
of  your  weight  when  you  can  do  so. 

When  he  is  brought  home,  put  him  in  his  stall  or  box,  slack 
the  girths,  take  off  the  bridle  and  give  him  his  gruel  at  once. 
Throw  a  rug  over  his  loins  and  puU  his  ears  for  a  minute  or  two. 

An  old  horse  needs  more  clothing  than  a  young  one. 

Condition  is  a  matter  of  seasons,  not  of  months  ;  a  horse  in 
hard  condition  can  take  without  injury  a  fall  that  would  disable  a 
soft  one  for  weeks. 

In  old  times  many  of  Virginia's  country  gentlemen 
kept  their  own  packs,  but  though  some   followed  the 

178 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  VIRGINIA 

hounds  according  to  the  English  tradition,  there  devel- 
oped a  less  sportsmanlike  style  of  hunting  called  "hill- 
topping,"  under  which  the  hunting  men  rode  to  an  ele- 
vated point  and  watched  the  hounds  run  the  fox,  with- 
out themselves  attempting  to  follow  across  country  and 
be  in  at  the  kill.  As  a  result,  the  fox  was,  if  caught, 
torn  to  pieces  by  the  hounds,  and  the  brush  and  head 
were  infrequently  saved. 

Under  the  traditions  of  English  fox-hunting — tradi- 
tions the  strictness  of  which  can  hardly  be  exaggerated 
— "hilltopping"  is  a  more  than  doubtful  sport,  and,  since 
organized  fox-hunting  in  the  United  States  is  taken  en- 
tirely from  the  English  idea,  the  practice  is  tabooed  on 
first-class  hunting  regions. 

The  origin  of  hilltopping  is,  however,  easily  under- 
stood. The  old  fox-hunters  simply  did  not,  as  a  rule, 
have  horses  adequate  to  negotiate  the  country,  hunters 
not  having  been  developed  to  any  great  extent  in  Amer- 
ica in  early  times. 

The  perfect  type  of  hunter  is  of  thoroughbred  stock. 
By  the  term  "thoroughbred"  horsemen  do  not  mean 
highly  bred  horses  of  any  kind,  as  is  sometimes  sup- 
posed, but  only  running  horses.  All  such  horses  come 
originally  of  British  stock,  for  it  is  in  Great  Britain  that 
the  breed  has  been  developed,  although  it  traces  back, 
through  a  number  of  centuries,  to  a  foundation  of 
Arabian  blood.  I  am  informed  that  climatic  and  other 
conditions  in  a  certain  part  of  Ireland  are  for  some  rea- 
son peculiarly  favorable  to  the  development  of  hunters 

179 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

and  that  these  conditions  are  duplicated  in  the  Pied- 
mont section  of  \'irginia,  and  nowhere  else  in  the 
whole  world.  Only  the  stanchest,  bravest,  fastest  type 
of  horse  is  suited  for  hunting  in  Virginia,  and  for  this 
reason  the  more  experienced  riders  to  hounds  prefer 
the  thoroughbred,  though  half-bred  and  three-(iuarter- 
bred  horses  are  also  used  to  some  extent,  the  thorough- 
bred often  being  too  mettlesome,  when  he  becomes  ex- 
cited, for  any  but  the  best  riders.  The  finest  qualities 
of  a  horse  are  brought  out  in  hunting  in  the  Piedmont 
section,  for  the  pace  here  is  very  fast — much  faster  than 
in  England,  though  it  should  be  added  that  in  the  Eng- 
lish hunting  country  there  are  more  hedges  than  over 
here,  and  that  the  jumps  are,  upon  the  whole,  stiffer. 

The  speed  of  the  Piedmont  Hunt  and  other  hunts  in 
Virginia  is  doubtless  due  to  the  use  of  southern  hounds, 
these  being  American  hounds,  smaller  and  faster  than 
English  hounds,  from  which,  however,  they  were  orig- 
inalW  bred.  The  desirable  qualities  in  a  pack  of  hounds 
are  uniformity  of  type,  substance,  speed,  and  color. 
These  points  have  to  do  not  only  with  the  style  of  a 
pack,  but  also  with  its  hunting  quality.  Thus  in  the 
Piedmont  pack  they  breed  for  a  red  hound  with  white 
markings,  so  that  the  pack  may  have  an  individual  ap- 
pearance, but  in  all  packs  a  great  effort  is  made  to  se- 
cure even  speed,  for  a  slow  hound  lags,  while  a  fast  one 
becomes  an  individual  hunter.  The  unusual  hound  is 
therefore  likely  to  be  "drafted''  from  the  pack. 

There  has  been  a  long  controversy  as  to  whether  the 

i8o 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  VIRGINIA 

English  or  American  type  of  hound  is  best  suited  for 
hunting  in  this  country,  and  the  matter  seems  still  to 
remain  one  of  opinion.  Probably  the  best  English  pack 
in  the  United  States  is  that  of  Mr.  A.  Henry  Higginson. 
Some  years  since,  Mr.  Higginson  and  Mr.  Harry 
Worcester  Smith,  of  Worcester,  Massachusetts,  master 
of  the  Grafton  pack,  made  a  bet  of  $5000  a  side,  each 
backing  his  own  hounds,  the  question  being  that  of  the 
general  suitability  of  the  American  versus  the  English 
hound  for  American  country.  The  trials  were  made  in 
the  Piedmont  region  of  Virginia,  and  Mr.  Smith's 
American  hounds  won  the  wager  for  him. 

In  the  last  ten  or  twenty  years  hunting  in  the  United 
States  has  been  organized  under  the  Hunts  Committee 
of  the  National  Steeplechase  Association.  Practically 
all  the  important  hunting  organizations  are  members  of 
this  association,  there  being  forty  of  these:  eleven  in 
Virginia,  nine  in  Pennsylvania,  six  in  New  York,  four 
in  Massachusetts,  three  each  in  Maryland  and  New  Jer- 
sey, and  one  each  in  Connecticut,  Vermont,  Ohio,  and 
Michigan — the  Grosse  Pointe  Hounds,  near  Detroit,  be- 
ing the  most  westerly  of  recognized  hunts,  although 
there    is    some    unrecognized    hunting    near    Chicago. 

An  idea  of  the  comparative  importance  of  hunting  in 
the  United  States  and  in  England  may  be  gathered  from 
the  fact  that  in  England  and  Wales  alone  there  are  more 
than  180  packs  of  foxhounds,  88  packs  of  beagles,  and 
16  packs  of  staghounds,  while  Ireland  and  Scotland 
have  many  also.     The  war,  however,  has  struck  hard  at 

181 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

hunting  in  the  British  Isles.  Daily's  Hunting  Directory 
for  191 5-16,  says: 

''Hunting  has  given  her  best,  for  of  those  who  have 
gone  from  the  hunting  field  to  join  the  colors,  the  mas- 
ters lead,  as  they  have  led  in  more  happy  days,  with  a 
tale  of  over  80  per  cent,  of  their  number,  the  hunt  sec- 
retaries following  with  over  50  per  cent.,  while  the  hunt 
servants  show  over  30  per  cent.  No  exact  data  are 
available  to  tell  of  the  multitude  from  the  rank  and  file 
that  has  followed  this  magnificent  lead,  excepting  that 
from  all  the  hunts  there  comes  the  same  report,  that 
practically  every  man  fit  for  service  has  responded  to 
the  call." 

It  is  estimated  that  17,000  horses  were  drafted  from 
hunting  for  the  cavalry  in  England  at  the  beginning 
of  the  war;  and  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  so  soon  after 
the  outbreak  as  July,  19 15,  the  "Directory"  published 
a  list  of  names  of  well-known  hunting  men  killed  in  ac- 
tion, which  occupied  more  than  seven  large  pages  printed 
in  small  type. 

Under  the  heading  ''Incidents  of  the  1914-15  Sea- 
son" are  to  be  found  many  items  of  curious  early  war- 
time interest,  a  few  of  which  I  quote : 

Lady  Stalbridge  announces  willingness  to  act  as  field  master  of 
the  South  and  West  Wilts  Hounds  during  her  husband's  absence 
in   France. 

Lieutenant  Charles  Romer  Williams  took  out  to  the  front  a 
pack  of  beagles,  with  which  the  officers  of  the  Second  Cavalry 
Brigade  hoped  to  hunt  Belgian  hares. 

182 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  VIRGINIA 

Capt.  E.  K.  Bradbury,  a  member  of  the  Cahir  Harriers,  earned 
the  V.  C.  at  Nery,  but  died  from  wounds. 


The  Grafton  Hounds  have  seventy-six  followers  with  the  col- 


ors. 


Admiral  Sir  David  Beatty,  of  North  Sea  fame,  has  a  hunting 
box  at  Brooksby  Hall,  in  the  Melton  Mowbray  country. 

Five  members  of  the  Crawley  and  Horsham  Hounds  have 
been  killed,  three  wounded,  and  two  are  missing. 

Ouorn  fields  down  to  about  30,  instead  of  300  last  season. 

Captain  the  Honorable  R.  B.  F.  Robertson  (Twenty-first  Lanc- 
ers) a  prisoner  of  war.  He  took  over  the  North  Tipperary 
Hounds  in  May,  and,  of  course,  did  not  get  a  chance  to  have  any 
sport. 

We  now  learn  that  the  French  authorities  have  discouraged 
fox-hunting  behind  the  fighting  lines.  So  did  the  Germans. 
One  day  British  hounds  took  up  the  scent  on  their  own  initiative. 
The  usual  followers  had  bigger  game  afoot,  and  were  in  the 
thick  of  an  engagement.  The  Germans  gained  ground  and  oc- 
cupied the  kennels.  WTien  the  hounds  returned  from  their  chase 
and  challenged  the  intruders  they  were  shot  down  one  by  one. 

Such  is  the  lore  I  had  acquired  when  the  motor  came 
for  me;  whereupon,  taking  a  few  sandwiches  to  sus- 
tain me  until  supper  time,  I  set  forth  through  the  night 
by  Ford,  for  the  station  at  The  Plains. 

The  pubHcation  of  the  larger  part  of  the  foregoing 
chapter  on  fox  hunting,  in  ''Collier's  Weekly,"  brought 
me  a  number  of  letters  containing  hunting  anecdotes. 

183 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Mr.  J.  R.  Smith  of  Martinsville,  Virginia,  calls  my 
attention  to  marked  difference  in  character  between  the 
red  fox  and  the  gray.  The  red  fox,  he  says,  depends 
upon  his  legs  to  elude  the  hounds,  and  will  sometimes 
lead  the  hunt  twenty-live  miles  from  the  place  where  he 
gets  up,  but  the  gray  fox  depends  on  cunning,  and  is 
more  prone  to  run  a  few  miles  and  "tack." 

Mr.  Smith  tells  the  following  story  illustrative  of  the 
gray  fox's  amazing  artfulness : 

"We  had  started  a  fox  on  three  different  occasions," 
he  writes,  ''running  him  a  warm  chase  for  about  four 
miles  and  losing  him  every  time  in  a  sheep  pasture. 
Finally  we  stationed  a  servant  in  that  pasture  to  see 
what  became  of  the  fox.  We  started  him  again  and 
he  took  the  same  route  to  the  pasture.  There  the  mys- 
tery was  solved.  The  fox  jumped  on  the  back  of  a  large 
ram,  which,  in  fright,  ran  off  about  half  a  mile.  The 
fox  then  jumped  off"  and  continued  his  run.  When  the 
hounds  came  up  we  urged  them  on  to  the  point  where 
the  fox  dismounted,  and  soon  had  his  brush." 

Another  correspondent  calls  my  attention  to  the  fact 
that,  in  Virginia,  hunting  is  not  merely  the  sport  of  the 
rich,  but  that  the  farmers  are  enthusiastic  members  of 
the  field — sometimes  at  the  expense  of  their  cattle  and 
crops.  He  relates  the  following  story  illustrative  of  the 
point  of  view  of  the  sporting  Virginia  farmer : 

"A  man  from  the  Department  of  Agriculture  came 
down  into  our  section  to  look  over  farms  and  give  ad- 

184 


FOX-HUNTING  IN  VIRGINIA 

vice  to  farmers.  He  went  to  see  one  farmer  in  my 
county  and  found  that  he  had  absolutely  nothing  grow- 
ing, and  that  his  livestock  consisted  of  three  hunters 
and  thirty-two  couples  of  hounds.  The  agricultural  ex- 
pert was  scandalized.  He  told  the  farmer  he  ought  to 
begin  at  once  to  raise  hogs.  'You  can  feed  them  what 
you  feed  the  dogs/  he  said,  'and  have  good  meat  for  your 
family  aside  from  what  you  sell.' 

"After  hearing  his  visitor  out,  the  farmer  looked  off 
across  the  country  and  spat  ruminatively. 

"  T  ain't  never  seen  no  hawg  that  could  catch  a  fox,' 
he  said,  and  with  that  turned  and  went  into  the  barn, 
evidently  regarding  the  matter  as  closed.  Clearly  he 
did  not  share  the  view  of  the  Irishman  who  dismissed 
fox  hunting  with  the  remark  that  a  fox  was  'damned 
hard  to  catch  and  no  good  when  you  got  him.'  " 


185 


CHAPTER  XVII 
'^A  CERTAIN  PARTY" 

Kind   are   her   answers, 

But  her  performance  keeps  no  day; 

Breaks  time,  as  dancers 

From  their  own   music  wlien  they  stray. 

Lost  is  our  freedom 

When  we  submit  to  women  so : 

Why  do  wc  need  'em 

When,    in    their    best,    they    work    our    woe? 

— Thomas  Campion. 

THE  motor  ride  to  The  Plains  was  a  cold  and 
rough  one.  I  remember  that  we  had  to  ford  a 
stream  or  two,  and  that  once,  where  the  mud  had 
been  churned  up  and  made  deep  by  the  wheels  of  many 
vehicles,  we  almost  stuck.  Excepting  at  the  fords,  the 
road  was  dusty,  and  the  dust  was  kept  in  circulation  by 
the  feet  of  countless  saddle  horses,  on  which  men  from 
the  country  to  the  south  of  Upperville  were  riding  home 
from  the  races.  All  the  way  to  The  Plains  our  lights 
kept  picking  up  these  riders,  sometimes  alone,  some- 
times in  groups,  all  of  them  going  our  way,  we  taking 
their  dust  until  we  overhauled  them,  then  giving  them 
ours. 

Dust  was  over  me  like  a  close-fitting  gray  veil  when 
I  reached  the  railroad  station  only  to  find  that  the  train 

i86 


"A  CERTAIN  PARTY" 

was  late.  I  had  a  magazine  in  my  bag,  but  the  Hght 
in  the  waiting-room  was  poor,  so  I  took  a  place  near 
the  stove  and  gave  myself  up  to  anticipations  of  a  bath, 
a  comfortable  room,  clean  clothing,  and  a  good  supper 
with  my  companion — and  another  companion  much 
more  beautiful. 

I  tried  to  picture  her  as  she  would  look.  She  would 
be  in  evening  dress,  of  course.  After  thinking  over  dif- 
ferent colors,  and  trying  them  upon  her  in  my  mind,  I 
decided  that  her  gown  should  be  of  a  delicate  pink,  and 
should  be  made  of  some  frail,  beautiful  material  which 
would  float  about  her  like  gossamer  when  she  moved, 
and  shimmer  like  the  Hght  of  dawn  upon  the  dew.  You 
know  the  sort  of  gown  I  mean :  one  of  those  gowns  upon 
which  a  man  is  afraid  to  lay  his  finger-tips  lest  the  ma- 
terial melt  away  beneath  them ;  a  gown  which,  he  feels, 
was  never  touched  by  seamstress  of  the  human  species, 
but  was  made  by  fairies  out  of  woven  moonlight,  star 
dust,  afterglow,  and  the  fragrance  of  flowers.  Such  a 
gown  upon  a  lovely  woman  is  man's  proof  that  woman 
is  indeed  the  thing  which  so  often  he  believes  her — that 
she  is  more  goddess  than  earthly  being;  for  man  knows 
well  that  he  himself  is  earthly,  and  that  a  costume  made 
from  such  dream  stuffs  and  placed  on  him,  would  not 
last  out  the  hour.  He  has  but  to  look  up  at  the  stars 
to  realize  the  infinity  of  space,  and,  similarly,  but  to 
look  at  her  in  her  evening  gown  to  realize  the  divinity  of 
woman. 

And  that  is  where  she  has  him.     For  it  is  n't  so ! 

187 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

At  last  came  the  train — just  the  dingy  train  to  stop 
at  such  a  station.  I  boarded  it,  found  a  seat,  and  con- 
tinued to  dream  dreams  as  we  rattled  on  toward  Wash- 
ington. 

Even  when  I  found  myself  walking  through  that  great 
terminal  by  which  all  railroads  enter  the  capital,  I 
hardly  believed  that  I  was  there,  nor  did  I  feel  entirely 
myself  until  I  had  reached  my  room  in  the  New  Wil- 
lard. 

Having  started  my  bath,  I  went  and  knocked  upon 
the  door  of  the  near-by  room  where  the  clerk  had  told 
me  I  should  find  my  fellow  traveler. 

"Oh,"  he  said,  without  enthusiasm  as  he  discovered 
me.     ''You  're  here,  are  you?" 

He  looked  imposing  and  severe  in  his  evening  dress. 
I  felt  correspondingly  dirty  and  humble. 

"Yes,"  I  replied  meekly.     "Any  news?" 

"None,"  he  replied.  "I  've  reserved  a  table  at  Har- 
vey's. They  dance  there.  At  first  they  said  there  was 
not  a  table  to  be  had — Saturday  night,  you  know — but 
I  told  them  who  was  to  be  with  us,  and  they  changed 
their  minds." 

"Good.     I  '11  be  dressed  in  a  little  while.     Silk  hats?" 

He  nodded.     I  returned  to  my  own  room. 

Less  than  an  hour  later,  my  toilet  completed,  I  re- 
joined him,  and  together  we  descended,  in  full  regalia, 
to  the  lobby. 

"Shall  we  take  a  taxi?"  he  suggested,  as  we  passed 
out  of  the  side  entrance. 

i88 


:8 


V,-,    O 

0-^ 


e  3 


o  o 

«*-.  o 

O  3 

o  2 


P^: 


^  o 
c  «> 
o : 


"A  CERTAIN  PARTY" 

*'How  far  away  is  the  theater?" 

"I  don't  know." 

We  asked  the  carriage  starter.  He  said  it  was  only 
two  or  three  blocks. 

"Let 's  walk,"  I  said. 

*T  don't  feel  like  walking,"  he  returned. 

We  rode. 

The  theater  was  just  emptying  when  we  arrived. 

"I  suppose  we'd  better  let  the  cab  go?"  I  said. 
"There  '11  be  quite  a  while  to  wait  while  she  's  chang- 
ing." 

"Better  keep  it,"  he  disagreed.  "Might  not  find  an- 
other." 

We  kept  it. 

At  the  stage  door  there  was  confusion.  Having  com- 
pleted its  week  in  Washington,  the  play  was  about  to 
move  elsewhere,  and  furniture  was  already  coming  out 
into  the  narrow  passage,  and  being  piled  up  to  be  taken 
on  wagons  to  the  train.  It  took  us  some  time  to  find 
the  doorman,  and  it  took  the  doorman — as  it  always  does 
take  doormen — a  long,  long  time  to  depart  into  the  un- 
known region  of  dressing  rooms,  with  the  cards  we  gave 
him,  and  a  still  longer  time  to  return. 

"Says  to  wait,"  he  grunted  when  he  came  back. 

Meanwhile  more  and  more  furniture  had  come  out, 
menacing  our  shins  and  our  beautifully  poHshed  hats 
in  passing,  and  leaving  us  less  room  in  which  to  stand. 

We  waited. 

After  ten  minutes  had  passed,  I  remarked : 

189 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

'*I  wish  we  had  let  the  taxi  go." 

After  twenty  minutes  I  remarked: 

"I  always  feel  like  an  idiot  when  1  have  to  wait  at  a 
stage  door." 

"I  don't  see  why  you  do  it,  then,"  said  he. 

"And  I  hate  it  worse  when  I  'm  in  evening  dress.  I 
hate  the  way  the  actors  look  at  us,  when  they  come  out. 
They  think  we  're  a  couple  of  Johnnies." 

"And  supposing  they  do?" 

I  do  not  know  how  long  this  unsatisfactory  dialogue 
might  have  continued  had  not  some  one  come  to  the 
inside  of  the  stage  door  and  spoken  to  the  doorman, 
whereat  he  indicated  us  with  a  gesture  and  said : 

'There  they  are." 

At  this  a  woman  emerged.  The  light  was  dim,  but  I 
saw  that  she  wore  no  hat  and  had  on  an  aoron.  As  she 
came  toward  us  we  advanced. 

"You  wait  for  madame?"  she  asked,  with  the  accent 
of  a  Frenchwoman. 

"Yes." 

"Madame  receive  your  telegram  only  this  afternoon," 
she  said.  "All  week,  she  say,  she  wait  to  hear.  This 
morning  she  have  receive  a  telegram  from  Mr.  \\^oods 
that  say  she  mus'  come  to  New  York.  She  think  you 
not  coming,  so  she  say  'Yes.'  Then  she  receive  your 
message.  She  don't  know  where  to  reach  you.  She 
can  do  nossing.  She  is  desolated !  She  mus'  fly  to  the 
train.  She  is  ver'  sorry.  She  hope  that  maybe  the 
gentlemans  will  be  in  Baltimore  nex'  week?     Yes?" 

190 


"A  CERTAIN  PARTY" 

"You  mean  she  can't  come  to-night?" 

"Yes,  monsieur.  She  cannot.  She  are  fill  with  re- 
gret.    She—" 

"Perhaps,"  said  my  companion,  recovering,  "we  can 
drive  her  to  the  train?" 

The  maid,  however,  did  not  seem  to  wish  to  discuss 
this  point.     She  shook  her  head  and  said : 

"Madame  ver'  sorry  she  cannot  come." 

"But  I  say,"  repeated  my  companion,  "that  we  shall  be 
delighted  to  drive  her  to  the  train  if  she  wishes." 

"She  ver'  sorry,"  persisted  the  maid  negatively. 

"Oh,  I  see,"  he  said.  "Very  well.  Please  say  to  her 
that  we  are  sorry,  too." 

"Yes,  monsieur."     The  maid  retired. 

"I  want  something  to  eat,"  I  remarked  as  we  passed 
down  the  long  furniture-piled  passage  leading  to  the 
street. 

"So  do  I.     We  have  that  table  at  Harvey's." 

"I  know;  but—" 

"That 's  a  fact,"  he  put  in.  "I  mentioned  her  name. 
We  can't  very  well  go  there  without  her." 

"And  all  dressed  up  like  a  pair  of  goats." 

"No." 

"There  's  always  the  hotel." 

"I  don't  want  to  go  back  there — not  now." 

"Neither  do  I.  Let 's  make  it  the  Shoreham,"  I  sug- 
gested as  we  emerged  upon  the  street. 

"All  right."  Then,  looking  across  the  sidewalk,  he 
added :     "There  's  that  damned  taxi !" 

191 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

''Yes.     We  '11  drive  around  there  in  it." 

"No,"  said  he,  "send  it  away.  I  don't  feel  like  rid- 
ing. 

We  walked  to  the  Shoreham.  The  cafe  looked  cheer- 
ful, as  it  always  does.  We  ordered  an  extensive  sup- 
per. It  was  good.  There  were  pretty  women  in  the 
room,  but  we  looked  at  them  with  the  austere  eyes  of 
disillusioned  men,  and  talked  cynically  of  life.  I  cannot 
recall  any  of  the  things  we  said,  though  I  remember 
thinking  at  the  time  that  both  of  us  were  being  rather 
brilliant,  in  an  icy  way.  I  suppose  it  was  mainly  about 
women.  That  was  to  be  expected.  Women,  indeed! 
\\'hat  were  women  to  us?  Nothing!  And  pretty 
women,  least  of  all.  Ah,  pretty  women!  Pretty 
women!  .  .  .  Yes,  yes! 

I  had  ordered  fruit  to  finish  oflf  the  meal,  and  I  re- 
member that  as  the  dish  was  set  upon  the  table,  it  oc- 
curred to  me  that  we  had  made  a  very  pleasant  party  of 
it  after  all. 

"Do  you  know,"  I  said,  as  I  helped  myself  to  some 
hothouse  grapes,  "I  've  had  a  bully  evening.  It  has 
been  fine  to  sit  here  and  have  a  party  all  to  ourselves. 
I  'm  not  so  sorry  that  she  did  not  come !" 

Then  I  ate  a  grape  or  two. 

They  were  very  handsome  grapes,  but  they  were  sour. 


192 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
THE  LEGACY  OF  HATE 

.  .  .  Immortal  hate, 
And   courage   never  to   submit   or  yield. 

— Paradise  Lost. 

THE  last  time  I  went  abroad,  a  Briton  on  the  boat 
told  me  a  story  about  an  American  tourist  who 
asked  an  old  English  gardener  how  they  made 
such  splendid  lawns  over  there. 

''First  we  cut  the  grass,"  said  the  gardener,  "and  then 
we  roll  it.     Then  we  cut  it,  and  then  we  roll  it." 

"That 's  just  what  we  do,"  said  the  American. 

"Ah,"  returned  the  gardener,  "but  over  here  we  've 
been  doing  it  five  hundred  years !" 

In  Liverpool  another  Englishman  told  me  the  same 
story.  Three  or  four  others  told  it  to  me  in  London. 
In  Kent  I  heard  it  twice,  and  in  Sussex  five  or  six  times. 
After  going  to  Oxford  and  the  Thames  I  lost  count. 

In  the  South  my  companion  and  I  had  a  similar  ex- 
perience with  the  story  about  that  daughter  of  the  Con- 
federacy who  declared  she  had  always  thought  "damn 
Yankee"  one  word.  In  Maryland  that  story  amused  us, 
in  Virginia  it  seemed  to  lose  a  little  of  its  edge,  and  we 
are  proud  to  this  day  because,  in  the  far  southern  States, 
we  managed  to  grin  and  bear  it. 

193 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Doubtless  the  young  lady  likewise  thought  that  **you- 
all"  was  one  word.  However  I  refrained  from  sug- 
gesting that,  lest  it  be  taken  for  an  attempt  at  retalia- 
tion. And  really  there  was  no  occasion  to  retaliate,  for 
the  story  was  always  told  with  good-humored  apprecia- 
tion not  only  of  the  dig  at  ''Yankees" — collectively  all 
Northerners  are  ''Yankees"  in  the  South — but  also  of 
the  sweet  absurdity  of  the  "unreconstructed"  point  of 
view. 

Speaking  broadly  of  the  South,  I  believe  that  there 
survives  little  real  bitterness  over  the  Civil  War  and  the 
destructive  and  grotesquely  named  period  of  "recon- 
struction." When  a  southern  belle  of  to-day  damns 
Yankees,  she  means  by  it,  I  judge,  about  as  much,  and 
about  as  little,  as  she  does  by  the  kisses  she  gives  young 
men  who  bear  to  her  the  felicitous  southern  relation- 
ship of  "kissing  cousins." 

Even  from  old  Confederate  soldiers  I  heard  no  ex- 
pressions of  violent  feeling.  They  spoke  gently,  hand- 
somely and  often  humorously  of  the  war,  but  never 
harshly.  Real  hate,  I  think,  remains  chiefly  in  one 
quarter :  in  the  hearts  of  some  old  ladies,  the  wives  and 
widows  of  Confederate  soldiers — for  there  are  but  few 
mothers  of  the  soldiers  left.  The  wonder  is  that  more 
of  the  old  ladies  of  the  South  have  not  held  to  their  re- 
sentment, for,  as  I  have  heard  many  a  soldier  say, 
women  are  the  greatest  sufferers  from  war.  One  vet- 
eran said  to  me:  "]\Iy  arm  was  shattered  and  had  to 
be  amputated  at  the  shoulder.     There  was  no  anesthetic. 

194  ' 


THE  LEGACY  OF  HATE 

Of  course  I  suffered,  but  I  never  suffered  as  my  mother 
did  when  she  learned  what  I  had  endured." 

Be  they  haters  of  the  North  or  not,  the  old  ladies  of 
the  South  are  among  its  chief  glories,  and  it  should  be 
added  that  another  of  those  glories  is  the  appreciation 
that  the  South  has  for  the  white-haired  heroines  who 
are  its  mothers,  grandmothers,  and  great-grandmothers, 
and  the  unfailing  natural  homage  that  it  pays  them.  I 
do  not  mean  by  this  merely  that  children  and  grandchil- 
dren have  been  taught  to  treat  their  elders  with  respect. 
I  do  not  mean  merely  that  they  love  them.  The  thing 
of  which  I  speak  is  beyond  family  feeling,  beyond  the 
respect  of  youth  for  age.  It  is  a  strong,  superb  senti- 
ment, something  as  great  as  it  is  subtle,  which  floods 
the  South,  causing  it  to  love  and  reverence  its  old  ladies 
collectively,  and  with  a  kind  of  national  spirit,  like  the 
love  and  reverence  of  a  proud  people  for  its  flag. 

Among  young  men,  I  met  many  who  told  me,  with 
suitable  pride,  of  the  parts  played  by  their  fathers  and 
uncles  in  the  war.  Of  these  only  one  spoke  with  heat. 
He  was  a  Georgian,  and  when  I  mentioned  to  him 
that,  in  all  my  inquiries,  I  had  heard  of  no  cases  of 
atrocious  attacks  upon  women  by  soldiers — such  attacks 
as  we  heard  of  at  the  time  of  the  German  inva- 
sion of  Belgium  and  France — he  replied  with  a  great 
show  of  feeling  that  I  had  been  misinformed,  and  that 
many  w^omen  had  been  outraged  by  northern  soldiers 
in  the  course  of  Sherman's  march  to  the  sea.  At  this 
my  heart  sank,  for  I  had  treasured  the  belief  that,  de- 

195 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

spite  the  roughness  of  war,  unprotected  women  had 
generally  been  safe  from  the  soldiers  of  North  and 
South  alike.  What  was  my  relief,  then,  on  later  receiv- 
ing from  this  same  young  man  a  letter  in  which  he  de- 
clared that  he  had  been  mistaken,  and  that  after  many 
inquiries  in  Georgia  he  had  been  unable  to  learn  of  a 
single  case  of  such  crime.  If  it  is  indeed  true  that  such 
things  did  not  occur  in  the  Civil  War — and  I  believe  con- 
fidently that  it  is  true — then  we  have  occasion,  in  the 
light  of  the  European  \Ka.r,  to  revise  the  popular  l)elief 
that  of  all  wars  civil  war  is  the  most  horrible. 

The  attitude  of  the  modern  South  (the  "New  South" 
which,  by  the  way,  one  Southerner  described  to  me  as 
meaning  "northern  capital  and  smoke")  toward  its 
own  "unreconstructed"  citizens,  for  all  its  sympathy  and 
tenderness,  is  not  without  a  glint  of  gentle  humor. 
More  than  once,  when  my  companion  and  I  were  re- 
ceived in  southern  homes  with  a  cordiality  that  pre- 
cluded any  thought  of  sectional  feeling,  we  were  never- 
theless warned  by  members  of  the  younger  generation 
— and  their  eyes  would  twinkle  as  they  said  it — to  "look 
out  for  mother ;  she  's  unreconstructed."  And  you  may 
be  sure  that  when  we  were  so  warned  we  did  "look 
out."  It  was  well  to  do  so!  For  though  the  mother 
might  be  a  frail  old  lady,  past  seventy,  with  the  face 
of  an  angel  and  the  normal  demeanor  of  a  saint,  we 
could  see  her  bridle,  as  we  were  presented  to  her,  over 
the  thought  there  here  were  two  Yankees  in  her  home 
— Yankees! — we  could  see  the  light  come  flashing  up 

196 


THE  LEGACY  OF  HATE 

into  her  eyes  as  they  encountered  ours,  and  could 
feel  beneath  the  veil  of  her  austere  civility  the  dagger 
points  of  an  eternal  enmity.  By  dint  of  self-control 
on  her  part,  and  the  utmost  effort  upon  ours  to  be 
tactful,  the  presentation  ceremony  was  got  over  with, 
and  after  some  formal  speeches,  resembling  those 
which,  one  fancies,  may  be  exchanged  by  opposing  gen- 
erals under  a  flag  of  truce,  we  would  be  rescued  from 
her,  removed  from  the  .room,  before  her  forbearance 
should  be  strained,  by  our  presence,  to  the  point  of  break- 
ing. A  baleful  look  would  follow  us  as  we  withdrew, 
and  we  would  retire  with  a  better  understanding  of  the 
flaming  spirit  which,  through  that  long,  bloody  conflict 
against  overwhelming  odds  in  wealth,  supplies,  and 
men,  sustained  the  South,  and  which  at  last  enabled 
it  to  accept  defeat  as  nobly  as  it  had  accepted  earlier 
victories  .  .  .  How  one  loves  a  gentle  old  lady  who  can 
hate  like  that ! 

In  this  chapter,  when  it  appeared  originally,  in  "Col- 
lier's Weekly,"  I  made  the  statement  that  I  had  seldom 
spent  an  hour  in  conversation  with  a  Southerner  with- 
out hearing  some  mention  of  the  Civil  War,  and  that  I 
had  heard  other  Northerners  remark  upon  this  matter, 
and  express  surprise  at  the  tenacity  with  which  the  war 
holds  its  place  in  the  foreground  of  the  southern  mind. 

This,  like  many  another  of  my  southern  observations, 
brought  me  letters  from  readers  of  "Collier's,"  residing 
In  the  South.  A  great  number  of  the  letters  thus  elic- 
ited, as  well  as  comments  made  upon  these  chapters  by 

197 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

the  southern  press,  have  been  of  no  small  interest  to  me. 
On  at  least  one  subject  (the  question  discussed  in  the 
next  chapter,  as  to  whether  the  expression  "you-all"  is 
ever  used  in  the  singular)  my  correspondents  have  con- 
vinced me  that  my  earlier  statement  was  an  error,  while 
on  other  subjects  they  have  modified  my  views,  and  on 
still  others  made  my  convictions  more  profound. 
Where  it  has  been  possible,  and  where  it  has  seemed,  for 
one  reason  or  another,  to  be  worth  while,  I  have  en- 
deavored, while  revising  the  story  of  my  southern  wan- 
derings for  this  book,  to  make  note  of  the  other  fellow's 
point  of  view,  especially  in  cases  where  he  disagrees 
with  me. 

The  following,  then,  is  from  a  letter  written  on  the 
stationery  of  Washington  and  Lee  University,  and  ap- 
plies to  certain  statements  contained  in  this  chapter : 

In  1813,  Thomas  Jefferson  wrote  to  a  newspaper  publisher: 
"Were  I  the  pubHsher  of  a  paper,  instead  of  the  usual  division 
into  Foreign,  Domestic,  etc.,  I  think  I  should  distribute  everything 
under  the  following  heads :  i.  True.  2.  Probable.  3.  Wanting 
confirmation.  4.  Lies,  and  be  careful  in  subsequent  papers  to 
correct  all  errors  in  preceding  ones." 

Allow  me  to  suggest  that  your  story  might,  under  Mr.  Jefter- 
son's  category,  be  placed  under  "2."  Perhaps  you  went  to  see 
"  The  Birth  of  a  Nation  "  before  you  wrote  it.  It  has  been  my 
experience  that  my  acquaintances  among  the  F.  F.  V.'s  have 
been  far  more  interested  in  whether  Boston  or  Brooklyn  would 
win  the  pennant  than  in  discussing  the  Civil  War.  By  the  young 
men  of  the  South  the  War  was  forgotten  long  ago. 

This  letter  has  caused  me  to  wonder  whether  the  fre- 
quency with  which  my  companion  and  I  heard  the  Civil 

198 


THE  LEGACY  OF  HATE 

War  discussed,  may  not,  perhaps,  have  been  due,  at 
least  in  part,  to  our  own  inquiries,  resuhing  from  the 
consuming  interest  that  we  had  in  hearing  of  the  War 
from  those  who  Hved  where  it  was  fought. 

Yet,  after  all,  it  seems  to  me  most  natural  that  the 
South  should  remember,  while  the  North  forgets. 
Not  all  Northerners  were  in  the  war.  But  all  South- 
erners were ;  if  a  boy  was  big  enough  to  carry  a  gun,  he 
went.  The  North  almost  completely  escaped  invasion, 
and  upon  one  occasion  when  a  southern  army  did  march 
through  northern  territory,  the  conduct  of  the  invading 
troops  toward  the  civilian  population  (the  false  Barbara 
Frietchie  legend  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding)  was 
so  exemplary  as  to  set  a  record  which  is  probably  un- 
equaled  in  history.^  The  South,  upon  the  other  hand, 
was  constantly  under  invasion,  and  the  record  of  de- 
struction wrought  by  northern  armies  in  the  valley  of 
the  Shenandoah,  on  the  March  to  the  Sea,  and  in  some 
other  instances,  is  writ  in  poverty  and  mourning  unto 
this  day. 

Thus,  except  politically,  the  North  now  feels  not  the 
least  effect  from  the  war.  But  the  South  knew  the 
terrors  of  invasion  and  the  pangs  of  conquest,  and  is 
only  growing  strong  again  after  having  been  ruined — 
as  instanced  by  the  fact,  which  I  came  across  the  other 
day,  that  the  tax  returns  from  one  of  the  southern 
States  have,  for  the  first  time  since  the  Civil  War, 
reached  the  point  at  which  they  stood  when  it  began. 

1  See  chapter  on  Colonel  Taylor  and  General  Lee. 

199 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

So,  very  naturally,  while  the  War  has  begun  to 
take  its  place  in  the  northern  mind  along  with  the 
Revolutionary  War,  as  something  to  be  studied  in  school 
luider  the  heading  "United  States  History,"  it  has  not, 
in  southern  eyes,  become  altogether  ''book  history,"  but 
is  history  that  lives — in  swords  hanging  upon  the  walls 
of  many  homes,  in  old  faded  letters,  in  sacks  of  worth- 
less Confederate  bills,  in  the  ruins  of  great  houses,  in 
lovingly  preserved  gray  uniforms,  in  southern  battle 
fields,  and  in  southern  burial  grounds  where  rows  upon 
rows  of  tombstones,  drawn  up  in  company  front,  stand 
like  gray  armies  forever  on  parade. 

Small  wonder  if,  amid  its  countless  tragic  memorials, 
the  South  does  not  forget.  The  strange  thing  is  that  bit- 
terness has  gone  so  soon ;  that  remembering  the  agonies 
of  war  and  the  abuses  of  reconstruction,  the  South  does 
not  to-day  hate  the  North  as  violently  as  ever.  If  to  err 
is  human,  the  North  has,  in  its  treatment  of  the  South, 
richly  proved  its  humanness;  and  if  forgiveness  is  di- 
vine, the  South  has,  by  the  same  token,  attained  some- 
thing like  divinity. 

Had  the  numbskull  North  understood  these  things  as 
it  should  have  understood  them,  there  would  not  now  be 
a  solid  Democratic  South. 

Such  rancor  as  remains  is,  I  believe,  strongest  in  the 
smaller  towns  in  those  States  which  suffered  the  great- 
est hardships.  I  know,  for  instance,  of  one  lady,  from 
a  little  city  in  Virginia,  who  refused  to  enter  the  Massa- 
chusetts Building  at  the  Chicago  World's  Fair,   and 

200 


THE  LEGACY  OF  HATE 

there  are  still  to  be  found,  in  Virginia,  ladies  who  do 
not  leave  their  houses  on  the  Fourth  of  July  because 
they  prefer  not  to  look  upon  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  The 
Confederate  flag  is  still,  in  a  sense,  the  flag  of  the  South. 
Southerners  love  it  as  one  loves  a  pressed  flower  from 
a  mother's  bridal  wreath.  When  the  Eleventh  Cavalry 
rode  from  Fort  Oglethorpe,  Georgia,  to  Winchester, 
Virginia,  a  few  years  since,  they  saw  many  Confederate 
flags,  but  only  one  Union  flag,  and  that  in  the  hands  of 
a  negro  child.  However,  war  had  not  then  broken  out 
in  Europe.     It  would  be  different  now. 

A  Virginia  lady  told  me  of  having  gone  to  a  dentist 
in  Winchester,  Virginia,  and  having  taken  her  little 
niece  with  her.  The  child  watched  the  dentist  put  a 
rubber  dam  in  her  aunt's  mouth,  and  then,  childlike,  be- 
gan to  ask  questions.  She  was  a  northern  child,  and 
she  had  evidently  heard  some  one  in  the  town  speak  of 
Sheridan's  ride. 

''Auntie,"  she  said,  "was  Sheridan  a  Northerner  or  a 
Southerner?" 

Owing  to  the  rubber  dam  the  aunt  was  unable  to  re- 
ply, but  the  dentist  answered  for  her.  "He  was  a 
drunken  Yankee !"  he  declared  vehemently. 

When,  later,  the  rubber  dam  was  removed,  the  aunt 
protested. 

"Doctor,"  she  reproved,  "you  should  not  have  said 
such  a  thing  to  my  niece.     She  is  from  New  York." 

"Then,"  returned  the  unrepentant  dentist,  "she  has 
heard  the  truth  for  once!" 

20 1 


AMERICAN  AD  VENTURES 

Doubtless  this  man  was  an  inheritor  of  hate,  Hke  the 
descendants  of  one  uncompromisingly  bitter  old  South- 
erner whose  will,  to  be  seen  among  the  records  of  the 
Hanover  County  courthouse,  in  Virginia,  bequeaths  to 
his  "children  and  grandchildren  and  their  descendants 
throughout  all  future  generations,  the  bitter  hatred  and 
everlasting  malignity  of  my  heart  and  soul  against  the 
Yankees,  including  all  people  north  of  Mason  and 
Dixon's  line." 


202 


CHAPTER  XIX 

*'YOU-ALL"  AND  OTHER  SECTIONAL 
MISUNDERSTANDINGS 

Let  us  make  an  honorable  retreat. 

— As  You  Like  It. 

THOSE  who  write  school  histories  and  wish  them 
adopted  by  southern  schools  have  to  handle 
the  Civil  War  with  gloves.  Such  words  as 
"rebel"  and  "rebellion"  are  resented  in  the  South,  and 
the  historian  must  go  softly  in  discussing  slavery, 
though  he  may  put  on  the  loud  pedal  in  speaking 
of  State  Rights,  the  fact  being  that  the  South  not 
only  knows  now,  but,  as  evidenced  by  the  utterances 
of  her  leading  men,  from  Jefferson  to  Lee,  knew 
long  before  the  war  that  slavery  was  a  great  curse; 
whereas,  on  the  question  of  State  Rights,  including 
the  theoretical  right  to  secede  from  the  Union — this 
being  the  actual  question  over  which  the  South  took 
up  arms — there  is  much  to  be  said  on  the  southern 
side.  Colonel  Robert  Bingham,  superintendent  of  the 
Bingham  School,  Asheville,  North  Carolina,  has  made 
an  exhaustive  study  of  the  question  of  secession,  and 
has  set  forth  his  findings  in  several  scholarly  and  tem- 
perately written  booklets. 

Colonel  Bingham  proves  absolutely,  by  quotation  of 

203 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

their  own  words,  that  the  framers  of  the  Constitution 
regarded  that  document  as  a  compact  between  the  sev- 
eral States.  He  shows  that  three  of  the  States  (Vir- 
ginia, New  York,  and  Rhode  Island)  joined  in  this  com- 
pact conditionally,  with  the  clear  purpose  of  resuming 
their  independent  sovereignty  as  States,  should  the  gen- 
eral government  use  its  power  for  the  oppression  of  the 
States;  that  up  to  the  time  of  the  Mexican  War  the 
New  England  States  contended  for,  not  against,  the 
right  to  secede;  that  John  Quincy  Adams  went  so  far 
as  to  negotiate  with  England  with  a  view  to  the  seces- 
sion of  the  New  England  States,  because  of  Jefferson's 
Embargo  Act,  and  moreover  that  up  to  1840  the  United 
States  Government  used  as  a  textbook  for  cadets  at 
West  Point,  Rawle's  ''View  of  the  Constitution,"  a  book 
which  teaches  that  the  Union  is  dissoluble.  Robert  E. 
Lee  and  Jefferson  Davis,  were,  therefore,  in  all  proba- 
bility, given  this  book  as  students  at  West  Point,  and 
consequently,  if  we  would  have  honest  history,  we  must 
face  the  astonishing  fact  that  there  is  evidence  to  show 
that  tJiey  learned  the  doctrine  of  secession  at  the  United 
States  Military  Academy. 

Colonel  Bingham,  who,  it  may  be  remarked,  served 
with  distinction  in  the  Confederate  Army,  has  very 
kindly  supplemented,  in  a  letter  to  me,  his  published 
statements.     He  writes: 

Secession  was  legal  theoretically,  but  practically  the  conditions 
on  which  the  thirteen  Independent  Republics,  covering  a  little 
strip  on  the  Atlantic  coast,  came  to  an  agreement,  could  not 

204 


''YOU-ALL" 

possibly  be  applied  to  the  great  inter-Oceanic  Empire  into  which 
these  thirteen  Independent  Republics  had  developed. 

"Theory  is  a  good  horse  in  the  stable,  but  may  make  an  arrant 
jade  on  the  journey" — to  paraphrase  Goldsmith — and  the  only 
way  in  which  these  irreconcilable  differences  could  be  settled  was 
by  bullet  and  bayonet,  which  settled  them  right  and  finally. 

Once  such  matters  as  these  are  fully  understood  in  the 
North,  there  will  be  left  but  one  grave  issue  between 
North  and  South,  that  issue  being  over  the  question  of 
whether  or  not  Southerners,  under  any  circumstances, 
use  the  phrase  "you-all"  in  the  singular. 

"Whatever  you  write  of  the  South,"  said  our  hos- 
tess at  a  dinner  party  in  Virginia,  "don't  make  the  mis- 
take of  representing  any  one  from  this  paht  of  the  coun- 
try, white  oh  black,  educated  oh  ignorant,  as  saying  'you- 
air  meaning  one  person  only." 

When  I  remarked  mildly  that  it  seemed  to  me  I  had 
often  seen  the  phrase  so  used  in  books,  and  heard  it  in 
plays,  eight  or  ten  southern  ladies  and  gentlemen  at  the 
table  pounced  upon  me,  all  at  once.  "Yes !"  they  agreed, 
with  a  kind  of  polite  violence,  "books  and  plays  by 
Yankees !" 

"If,"  one  of  the  gentlemen  explained,  "you  write  to 
a  friend  who  has  a  family,  and  say,  according  to  the 
northern  practice,  'I  hope  to  see  you  when  you  come  to 
my  town,'  you  write  something  which  is  really  ambigu- 
ous, since  the  word  'you'  may  refer  only  to  your  friend, 
or  may  refer  also  to  his  family.  Our  southern  'you-all' 
makes  it  explicit." 

205 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

I  told  him  that  in  the  North  we  also  used  the  word 
"all"  in  connection  with  "you,"  though  we  accented  the 
two  evenly,  and  did  not  compound  them,  but  he  seemed 
to  believe  that  "you"  followed  by  "all"  belonged  exclu- 
sively to  the  South. 

The  argument  continued  almost  constantly  through- 
out the  meal.  Not  until  coffee  was  served  did  the  sub- 
ject seem  to  be  exhausted.  But  it  was  not,  for  after 
pouring  a  demi-tasse  our  hostess  lifted  a  lump  of  sugar 
in  the  tongs,  and  looking  me  directly  in  the  eye  inquired: 
"Do  you-all  take  sugah?" 

Undoubtedly  it  would  have  been  wiser,  and  politer, 
to  let  this  pass,  but  the  discussion  had  filled  me  with 
curiosity,  not  only  because  of  my  interest  in  the  localism, 
but  also  because  of  the  amazing  intensity  with  which  it 
had  been  discussed. 

"But,"  I  exclaimed,  "you  just  said  'you-all,'  apparently 
addressing  me.     Didn't  you  use  it  in  the  singular?" 

No  sooner  had  I  spoken  than  I  was  sorry.  Every  one 
looked  disconcerted.  There  was  silence  for  a  moment. 
I  was  very  much  ashamed. 

"Oh,  no,"  she  said  at  last.  "When  I  said  'you-all'  I 
meant  you  and  Mr.  jNIorgan."  (She  pronounced  it 
"]\Ioh-gan,"  with  a  lovely  drawl.)  As  she  made  this 
statement,  she  blushed,  poor  lady ! 

Being  to  blame  for  her  discomfiture,  I  could  not  bear  to 
see  her  blush,  and  looked  away,  but  only  to  catch  the  eye 
of  my  companion,  and  to  read  in  its  evil  gleam  the 
thought:  "Of  course  they  use  it  in  the  singular.     But 

206 


"YOU-ALL" 

are  n't  you  ashamed  of  having  tripped  up  such  a  pretty 
creature  on  a  point  of  dialect?" 

Though  my  interest  in  the  southern  idiom  had  caused 
me  to  forget  about  the  sugar,  my  hostess  had  not  for- 
gotten. 

*'Well,"  she  said,  still  balancing  the  lump  above  the 
cup,  and  continuing  gamely  to  put  the  question  in  the 
same  form,  and  to  me:  "Do  you-all  take  sugah,  oh 
not?" 

I  had  no  idea  how  my  companion  took  his  coffee,  but 
it  seemed  to  me  that  tardy  politeness  now  demanded  that 
I  tacitly — or  at  least  demi-tacitly — accede  to  the  alleged 
plural  intent  of  the  question.  Therefore,  I  replied :  ''Mr. 
Morgan  takes  two  lumps.     I  don't  take  any,  thanks." 

Late  that  night  as  we  were  returning  to  our  hotel,  my 
companion  said  to  me  somewhat  tartly:  'Tn  case  such 
a  thing  comes  up  again,  I  wish  you  would  remember  that 
sugar  in  my  coffee  makes  me  ill." 

"Well,  why  didn't  you  say  so?" 

"Because,"  he  returned,  "I  thought  that  you-all  ought 
to  do  the  answering.  It  seemed  best  for  me-all  to  keep 
quiet  and  try  to  look  plural  under  the  singular  con- 
ditions." 

No  single  thing  I  ever  wrote  has  brought  to  me  so 
many  letters,  nor  letters  so  uniform  in  sentiment  (albeit 
widely  different  in  expression),  as  the  foregoing,  seem- 
ingly unimportant  tale,  printed  originally  in  "Collier's 
Weekly." 

207 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Some  one  has  pointed  out  that  various  communities 
have  "fighting  words,"  and  as  the  letters  poured  in  I 
began  to  reahze  that  in  discussing  "you-all"  1  had  inad- 
vertently hit  upon  a  term  which  aroused  the  ire  of  the 
South — or  rather,  that  1  had  aroused  ire  by  implying 
that  the  expression  is  sometimes  used  in  the  singular — 
the  Solid  South  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 

Never,  upon  any  subject,  have  I  known  people  to  agree 
as  my  southern  correspondents  did  on  this.  The  unan- 
imity of  their  dissent  was  an  impressive  thing.  So  was 
the  violence  some  of  them  displayed. 

For  a  time,  indeed,  the  heat  with  which  they  wrote, 
obscured  the  issue.  That  is  to  say,  most  of  them  instead 
of  explaining  merely  denied,  and  added  comments,  more 
or  less  unflattering,  concerning  me. 

Wrote  a  lady  from  Lexington,  Kentucky: 

I  have  lived  in  Kentucky  all  of  my  life,  and  have  never  yet 
heard  "you-all"  used  in  the  singular,  not  even  among  the  negroes. 
My  grandparents  and  friends  say  they  have  never  heard  it,  either. 

It  was  needless  for  you  to  tell  your  Virginia  hostess  that  "  you- 
all "  (meaning  you  and  your  friend)  were  Yankees.  The  fact 
that  you  criticized  her  language  proved  it.  Southern  people 
pride  themselves  on  their  tact,  and  no  doubt,  at  the  time,  she 
was  struggling  to  conceal  a  smile  because  of  some  of  your  own 
localisms. 

Many  of  the  letters  were  more  severe  than  this  one, 
and  most  of  them  made  the  point  that  I  had  been  im- 
polite to  my  hostess,  and  that,  in  all  probability,  when 
she  looked  at  me  and  asked,  "Do  you-all  take  sugah?" 
she  was  playing  a  joke  upon  me,  apropos  the  discussion 

208 


^'YOU-ALL" 

which  had  preceded  the  question.     For  example,  this, 
from  a  gentleman  of  Pell  City,  Alabama : 

My  wife  is  the  residuary  legatee  of  Virginia's  language,  in- 
herited, acquired  and  affected  varieties,  including  the  vanishing 
y;  annihilated  g;  long-distance  a,  and  irresistible  drawl. 

To  quell  the  unfortunate  tumult  that  has  arisen  in  our  house- 
hold as  a  result  of  your  last  article  in  "Collier's"  I  am  com- 
manded to  advise  you  that  the  use  of  "  you-all "  in  the  singular 
is  absodamnlutely  non  est  factum  in  Virgina,  save,  perhaps, 
among  the  hill  people  of  the  Blue  Ridge. 

Also,  take  notice  that  when  your  hostess,  with  apparent  in- 
advertence, used  the  expression  in  connection  with  sugar  in  your 
demi-tasse,  the  subsequent  blush  was  due  to  your  failure  to  catch 
her  witticism,  ignorantly  mistaking  it  for  a  lapse  of  hers. 

My  wife  was  going  to  write  to  you  herself,  but  I  managed  to 
divert  this  cruel  determination  by  promising  to  uphold  the  honor 
of  the  Old  Dominion.  There  is  already  too  much  blood  being 
shed  in  the  world  without  spilling  that  of  non-combatants  as 
would  have  been  "you-all's"  fate  had  she  gone  after  you  with  a 
weapon  more  mighty  than  the  sword  when  in  the  hands  of  Mr. 
Wilson  or  an  outraged  woman. 

In  face  of  all  this  and  much  more,  however,  my  con- 
viction was  unshaken.  I  talked  it  over  with  my  com- 
panion. He  remembered  the  episode  of  the  dinner  table 
exactly  as  I  did.  Moreover,  I  still  had  my  notes,  made 
in  the  hotel  that  night.  The  lady  looked  at  me.  My 
companion  was  several  places  removed  from  her  at  the 
other  side  of  the  table.  How  could  she  have  meant  to 
include  him?  And  how  could  she  have  expected  me  to 
say  how  he  took  his  after-dinner  coffee  ? 

At  last,  to  reassure  myself,  I  wrote  to  the  wisest,  clev- 

209 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

erest,  most  trustworthy  lady  in  the  South,  and  asked  her 
what  it  all  meant. 

**Well,"  she  wrote  back  from  Atlanta,  "1  will  tell  you, 
but  I  am  not  sure  that  you  w^ill  understand  me.  The  an- 
swer is :  She  did,  but  she  did  n't.  She  looked  at  and 
spoke  to  you  and,  of  course,  by  all  rules  of  logic  she 
could  not  have  been  intending  to  make  you  Morg's 
keeper  in  the  matter  of  coffee  dressing.  Btit  she  never 
would  have  said  'you-all'  if  Morg  had  not  been  in  her 
mind  as  joined  with  you.  The  response,  according  to 
her  thought-connotation,  would  have  been  from  you  and 
from  him." 

This  was  disconcerting.  So  was  a  letter,  received  in 
the  same  mail,  from  a  gentleman  in  Charleston : 

It  is  as  plain  as  the  nose  on  your  face  that  you  are  not  yet  con- 
vinced that  we  in  the  South  never  use  "you-all''  with  reference 
to  one  person.  The  case  you  mentioned  proves  nothing  at  all. 
The  very  fact  that  there  were  two  strangers  present  justified  the 
use  of  the  expression ;  we  continually  use  the  expression  in  that 
way,  and  in  such  cases  we  expect  an  answer  from  both  persons 
so  addressed.  To  illustrate :  just  a  few  days  ago  I  "carried" 
two  girls  into  an  "ice-cream  parlor."  After  we  were  seated, 
I  looked  at  the  one  nearest  me,  and  said :  "Well,  what  will 
you-all  have?" 

Physically  we  are  so  constructed  that  unless  a  person  is  cross- 
eyed it  is  impossible  to  look  at  two  persons  at  once ;  the  mere  fact 
that  I  looked  at  the  one  nearest  me  did  not  mean  that  I  was  not 
addressing  both.  I  expected  an  answer  from  both,  and  I  got  it, 
too  (as  is  generally  the  case  where  ice-cream  is  concerned). 

The  subject  is  one  to  which  I  have  devoted  the  most  careful 
attention  for  many  years.  I  have  been  so  interested  in  it  that 
almost  unconsciously,  whenever  I  myself  use  the  expression  "you- 

2IO 


"YOU-ALL" 

all,"  or  hear  any  one  else  use  it,  I  note  whether  it  is  intended  to 
refer  to  one  or  to  more  than  one  person.  I  have  heard  thou- 
sands of  persons,  white,  black  and  indifferent,  use  the  expression, 
and  the  only  ones  I  have  ever  heard  use  it  incorrectly  are  what 
we  might  call  "professional  Southerners."  For  instance,  last 
week  I  went  to  a  vaudeville  show,  and  part  of  the  performance 
was  given  by  two  "black-face"  comedians,  calling  themselves 
"The  Georgia  Blossoms."  Their  dialect  was  excellent,  with  the 
single  exception  that  one  of  them  twice  used  the  expression  "you- 
all"  where  it  could  not  possibly  have  meant  more  than  one  per- 
son. And  I  no  sooner  heard  it  than  I  said  to  myself :  "There 
is  one  blossom  that  never  bloomed  in  Georgia !" 

Another  instance  is  the  following:  I  was  once  approached  by 
a  beggar  in  Atlanta,  who  saluted  me  thus :  "Say,  mister,  can't 
you-all  give  me  a  nickel?"  Had  I  been  accompanied  it  would 
have  been  all  right,  but  I  was  alone,  and  there  was  no  other  per- 
son near  me  except  the  hobo.  Did  I  give  him  the  nickel?  I 
should  say  not !  I  said  to  myself :  "He  is  a  damned  Yankee 
trying  to  pass  himself  off  for  a  Southerner." 

Horrid  glimmerings  began  to  filter  dimly  through. 
And  yet — 

Next  day  came  a  letter  calHng  my  attention  to  an  ar- 
ticle, written  years  ago  by  Joel  Chandler  Harris  and 
Thomas  Nelson  Page,  jointly,  in  which  they  plead  with 
northern  writers  not  to  misuse  the  disputed  expression 
by  applying  it  in  the  singular. 

That  was  another  shock.  I  felt  conviction  tottering 
.  .  .  But  she  did  look  at  me  .  .  .  She  did  n't  expect  an 
answer  from  my  companion  .  .  . 

And  then  behold!  a  missive  from  Mr.  H.  E.  Jones,  a 
member — and  a  worthy  one — of  the  Tallapoosa  County 
Board  of  Education,  and  a  resident  of  Dadeville,  Ala- 

211 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

bama.  Mr.  Jones'  educational  activities  reach  far  be- 
yond Tallapoosa  County,  and  far  beyond  the  confines 
of  his  State,  for  he  has  educated  me.  lie  has  made  me 
see  the  light. 

"I  want  to  straighten  you  out,"  he  wrote,  kindly. 
*'We  never  use  'you-all'  in  the  singular.  Not  even  the 
most  ignorant  do  so.  But,  as  you  know,"  (Ah,  that  was 
mercifully  said!)  "there  are  some  peculiar,  almost  un- 
explainable,  shades  of  meaning  in  local  idioms  of  speech, 
which  are  not  easy  for  a  stranger  to  understand.  I  have 
a  friend  who  was  reared  in  Milwaukee  and  is  a  gradu- 
ate of  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  who  tells  me  he 
would  have  argued  the  'you-all'  point  with  all  comers 
for  some  years  following  his  taking  up  his  residence 
here,  but  he  is  at  this  time  as  ready  as  I  to  deny  the  alle- 
gation and  'chaw  the  alligator.' 

"When  your  young  lady,  in  Virginia,  asked,  *Do  you- 
all  take  sugar?'  she  mentally  included  Mr.  Morgan,  and 
perhaps  all  other  Yankees.  I  would  ask  my  local  gro- 
cer, 'Will  you-all  sell  me  some  sugar  this  morning?' 
meaning  his  establishment,  collectively,  although  I  ad- 
dressed him  personally;  but  I  would  7Wt  ask  my  only 
servant,  'Have  you-all  milked  the  cow?'  " 

And  that  is  the  exact  truth. 

I  was  absolutely  wrong.  And  though,  having  printed 
the  ghastly  falsehood  in  my  original  article,  I  can  hardly 
hope  now  for  absolution  from  the  outraged  South,  I 
can  at  least  retract,  as  I  hereby  do,  and  can,  moreover, 
thank  Mr.  H.  E.  Jones,  of  Tallapoosa  County,  Alabama, 

212 


*'YOU-ALL" 

tor  having  saved  me  from  a  double  sin;  for  had  he 
not  given  me  the  simple  illustration  of  the  grocery  store, 
I  might  have  repeated,  now,  my  earlier  misstatement. 


213 


CHAPTER  XX 
IDIOMS  AND  ARISTOCRACY 

SOUTHERNERS  have  told  me  that  they  can  tell 
from  what  part  of  the  South  a  person  comes, 
by  his  speech,  just  as  an  Easterner  can  dis- 
tinguish, by  the  same  means  a  New  Englander,  a 
New  Yorker,  a  Aliddle-Westerner,  and  a  Brooklynite. 
I  cannot  pretend  to  have  become  an  authority  upon 
southern  dialect,  but  it  is  obvious  to  me  that  the  speech 
of  New  Orleans  is  unlike  that  of  Charleston,  and  that  of 
Charleston  unlike  that  of  Virginia. 

The  chief  characteristic  of  the  Virginian  dialect  is  the 
famous  and  fascinating  localism  which  Professor  C.  Al- 
phonso  Smith  has  called  the  ''vanishing  3'" — a  y  sound 
which  causes  words  like  "car"  and  "garden"  to  be  pro- 
nounced "cyar"  and  "gyarden" — or,  as  Professor  Smith 
prefers  to  indicate  it:  "C^ar"  and  "g^arden."  I  am 
told  that  in  years  gone  by  the  "vanishing  y"  was  com- 
mon to  all  Virginians,  but  though  it  is  still  common 
enough  among  members  of  the  old  generation,  and  is 
used  also  by  some  young  people — particularly,  I  fancy, 
young  ladies,  who  realize  its  fetching  quality — there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  it  is,  in  both  senses,  vanishing,  and  that 
not  half  the  Virginians  of  the  present  day  pronounce 

214 


IDIOMS  AND  ARISTOCRACY 

"cigar"  as  "segyar,"  "carpet"  as  "cya'pet,"  and  "Carter," 
as  "Cyahtah." 

In  Virginia  and  many  other  parts  of  the  South  one 
hears  such  words  as  "aunt"  correctly  pronounced  with 
the  broad  a,  and  such  words  as  "tube"  and  "new"  prop- 
erly given  the  full  u  sound  (instead  of  "toobe,"  and 
"noo,"  as  in  some  parts  of  the  North) ;  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  while  the  South  gives  the  short  o  sound  in  such 
words  as  "log"  and  "fog,"  it  invariably  calls  a  dog  a 
"dawg."  "Your"  is  often  pronounced  "yore,"  "sure" 
as  "shore,"  and,  not  infrequently,  "to"  as  "toe." 

The  South  also  uses  the  word  "carry"  in  a  way  that 
strikes  Northerners  as  strange.  If  a  Southerner  offers 
to  "carry"  you  to  the  station,  or  over  his  plantation,  he 
does  not  signify  that  he  intends  to  transport  you  by 
means  of  physical  strength,  but  that  he  will  escort  you. 
If  he  "carries  you  to  the  run"  you  will  find  that  the 
"run"  is  what  Northerners  call  a  creek;  if  to  the 
"branch,"  or  "dreen,"  that  is  what  we  call  a  brook. 

This  use  of  the  word  "carry,"  far  from  being  a  cor- 
ruption, is  pure  old  English,  and  is  used  in  the  Bible,  and 
by  Smollett,  though  it  is  amusing  to  note  that  the  "Geor- 
gia Gazetteer"  for  1837,  mentions  as  a  lamentable  pro- 
vincialism such  an  application  of  the  word  as  "to  carry 
(instead  of  lead)  a  horse  to  water."  If  the  "Gazetteer" 
were  indeed  correct  in  this,  then  the  Book  of  Genesis 
contains  an  American  provincialism. 

The  customary  use  of  the  word  in  the  North,  as  "to 
carry  a  cane,  or  a  bag,"  is  equally  but  no  more  correct 

215 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

than  the  southern  usage.  I  am  informed  by  j\lr.  W.  T. 
Hall,  Editor  of  the  Dothan  (Alabama)  ''Eagle,"  that 
the  word  used  in  his  part  of  the  country,  as  signifying 
"to  bear  on  the  back,  or  shoulder,"  is  "tote."  "Tote" 
is  a  word  not  altogether  unknown  in  the  North,  and  it 
has  recently  found  its  way  into  some  dictionaries, 
though  the  old  "Georgia  Gazetteer"  disapproved  of  it. 
Even  this  word  has  some  excuse  for  being,  in  that  it  is  a 
deformed  member  of  a  good  family,  having  come  from 
the  Latin,  toUit,  been  transformed  into  the  early  English 
"tolt,"  and  thus  into  what  I  believe  to  be  a  purely  Ameri- 
can word. 

Other  expressions  which  struck  me  as  being  charac- 
teristic of  the  South  are  "stop  by,"  as  for  instance,  "I 
will  stop  by  for  you,"  meaning,  "I  will  call  for  you  in 
passing";  "don't  guess,"  as  "I  don't  guess  I'll  come"; 
and  "Yes  indeedy !"  which  seems  to  be  a  kind  of  emphatic 
"Yes  indeed." 

"As  I  look  back  over  the  old  South,"  said  one  white- 
haired  Virginian,  "there  were  two  things  it  was  above. 
One  was  accounts  and  the  other  was  grammar.  Trades- 
men in  prosperous  neighborhoods  were  always  in  dis- 
tress because  of  the  long  credits,  though  gambling  debts 
were,  of  course,  always  punctiliously  paid.  As  to  the 
English  spoken  in  old  Virginia — and  indeed  in  the  whole 
South — there  is  absolutely  no  doubt  that  its  softness  and 
its  peculiarities  in  pronunciation  are  due  to  the  influence 
of  the  negro  voice  and  speech  on  the  white  race.  Some 
of  the  young  people  seem  to  wish  to  dispute  this,  but  we 

216 


H 

tr 

CD 

o 

o 

n 


< 


i?d 


m2 


p 


s'^?'®"'^^ 


IDIOMS  AND  ARISTOCRACY 

older  ones  used  to  take  the  view — half  humorously,  of 
course — that  if  a  Southerner  spoke  perfect  English,  it 
showed  he  wasn't  a  gentleman;  "that  he  hadn't  been 
raised  with  niggers  around  him." 

"Oh,  you  should  n't  tell  him  that !"  broke  in  a  lady  who 
was  present. 

"Why  not  ?"  demanded  the  old  gentleman. 

"He  '11  print  it!"  she  said. 

"Well,"  he  answered,  "ain't  it  true?  What's  the 
harm  it  it?" 

"There!"  she  exclaimed.  "You  said  'aint.'  He'll 
print  that  Virginians  say  'ain't' !" 

"Well,"  he  answered,  "I  reckon  we  do,  don't  we?" 

She  laughed  and  gave  up.  "I  remember,"  she  told  me, 
"the  very  spot  on  the  turnpike  going  out  to  Ripon,  where 
I  made  up  my  mind  to  break  myself  of  saying  'ain't.' 
But  I  want  to  tell  you  that  we  are  talking  much  better 
English  than  we  used  to.  Even  the  negroes  are.  You 
don't  hear  many  white  people  saying  'gwine'  for  'going' 
any  more,  for  instance,  and  the  young  people  don't  say 
'set'  for  'sit'  and  'git'  for  'get,'  as  their  fathers  did." 

"I  've  heard  folks  say,  though,"  put  in  the  old  gentle- 
man, "that  they  'd  ruther  speak  like  a  Virginian  than 
speak  correctly.  The  old  talk  was  pretty  nice,  after  all. 
I  don't  hold  to  all  these  new  improvements.  They  've 
been  going  too  far  in  this  Commonwealth." 

"What  have  they  been  doing?"  I  asked. 

"Doing !"  he  returned,  "Why,  they  're  gradually  tak- 
ing the  cuspidors  out  of  the  church  pews !" 

217 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Before  the  question  of  dialect  is  dropped,  it  should  be 
said  that  those  who  do  not  believe  the  soft  southern 
pronunciation  is  derived  from  negroes,  can  make  out 
an  interesting  case.  If,  they  ask,  the  negro  has  cor- 
rupted the  English  of  the  South,  why  is  it  that  he  has 
not  also  corrupted  the  language  of  the  West  Indies — 
British  and  French?  French  negroes  speak  like  French 
persons  of  white  blood,  and  British  West  Indian  negroes 
often  speak  the  cockney  dialect,  without  a  trace  of  "nig- 
ger." Moreover,  it  is  pointed  out  that  in  southern 
countries,  the  world  over,  there  is  a  tendency  to  soften 
the  harsh  sounds  of  language,  to  elide,  and  drop  out 
consonants.  The  Andalusians  speak  a  Spanish  com- 
parable in  many  of  its  peculiarities  with  the  English  of 
our  own  South,  and  the  south-Italians  exhibit  similar 
dialectic  traits.  Nor  do  the  parallels  between  the  north 
and  south  of  Spain  and  Italy,  and  of  the  United  States, 
end  there.  The  north-Italians  and  north-Spaniards  are 
the  "Yankees"  of  their  respective  countries — the 
shrewd,  cold  business  people — whereas  the  south- 
Italians  and  south-Spaniards  are  more  poetic,  more 
dashing,  more  temperamental.  The  merchants  are  of 
the  north  of  Spain,  but  the  dancers  and  bull-fighters  are 
Andalusians.  And  just  as  our  Americans  of  the  North 
admire  the  lazy  dialect  of  the  South,  so  the  north- 
Spaniards  admire  the  dialect  of  Andalusia,  and  even 
imitate  it  because  they  think  it  has  a  fashionable  sound 
— quite  as  British  fashionables  cultivate  the  habit  of 
dropping  final  r/'s,  as  in  "huntin'  "  for  "hunting." 

218 


IDIOMS  AND  ARISTOCRACY 

Virginia,  more  than  any  other  State  I  know  of,  feels 
its  entity  as  a  State.  If  you  meet  a  Virginian  travehng 
outside  his  State,  and  ask  where  he  is  from,  he  will  not 
mention  the  name  of  the  city  in  which  he  resides,  but  will 
reply:  "I  'm  from  Va'ginia."  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
you  are  in  Virginia,  and  ask  him  the  same  question,  he 
will  proudly  reply:  "I'm  from  Fauquier,"  or  "I'm 
from  Westmoreland,"  or  whatever  the  name  of  his 
county  may  be.  The  chances  are,  also,  that  his  trunks 
and  traveling  bags  will  be  marked  with  his  initials,  fol- 
lowed not  by  the  name  of  his  town,  but  by  the  abbrevia- 
tion, "Va." 

I  was  told  of  one  old  unreconstructed  Virginian  who 
had  to  go  to  Boston  on  business.  The  gentleman  he 
went  to  see  there  was  exceedingly  polite  to  him,  asking 
him  to  his  house,  putting  him  up  at  his  club,  and  showing 
him  innumerable  courtesies.  The  old  Confederate,  writ- 
mg  to  his  wife,  indicated  his  amazement:  "Although 
he  is  not  a  Virginian,"  he  declared,  "I  must  confess  that 
he  lives  like  a  gentleman." 

The  name  of  his  Bostonian  acquaintance  was  lohn 
Quincy  Adams. 

I  heard  this  story  from  a  northern  lady  who  has  a 
country  place  near  a  small  town  in  Virginia.  In  the 
North  this  lady's  family  is  far  from  being  unknown,  but 
ni  Virginia,  she  assured  me,  all  persons  originating  out- 
side the  State  are  looked  upon  as  vague  being-s  without 
''family." 

"They  seem  to  think,"  she  said,  "that  Northerners 

219 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

have    no    parents — that    they    are    made    chemically." 

This  does  not  imply,  however,  that  well-bred  North- 
erners are  excluded  from  society.  Even  if  they  are  well 
off  they  may  get  into  society ;  for  though  money  does  not 
count  in  one's  favor  in  such  a  town,  it  does  not  count 
against  one.  The  social  requirement  of  the  place  is 
simple.     If  people  are  ''nice  people,"  that  is  enough. 

Of  course,  however,  it  is  one  thing  to  be  admitted  to 
Virginia  society  and  another  to  belong  to  it  by  right.  A 
case  in  point  is  that  of  a  lady  visiting  in  a  Virginia  city 
who,  while  calling  at  the  house  of  some  "F.  F.  V's,"  was 
asked  by  a  little  girl,  the  daughter  of  the  house,  where  she 
had  been  born. 

"Mawtha,"  said  the  little  girl's  mother,  after  the  caller 
had  departed,  *'you  must  not  ask  people  where  they  were 
bo'n.  If  they  were  bo'n  in  Va'ginia  they  will  tell  you 
so  without  asking,  and  if  they  were  n't  bo'n  in  Va'ginia 
it 's  very  embarrassing." 

Some  of  the  old  families  of  the  inner  circle  are  in  a 
tragic  state  of  decay,  owing  to  inbreeding;  others,  in  a 
more  wholesome  physical  and  mental  condition,  are  per- 
petually wrestling  with  the  heritage  of  poverty  left  over 
from  the  War — ''too  proud  to  whitewash  and  too  poor 
to  paint" — clinging  desperately  to  the  old  acres,  and 
to  the  old  houses  which  are  like  beautiful,  tired  ancestral 
ghosts. 

Until  a  few  years  ago  the  one  resource  of  Virginian 
gentlewomen  in  need  of  funds  was  to  take  boarders,  but 
more  lately  the  daughters  of  distinguished  but  poverty- 

220 


IDIOMS  AND  ARISTOCRACY 

stricken  families  have  found  that  they  may  work  in  of- 
fices. Thus,  in  the  town  of  which  I  speak,  several  ladies 
who  are  very  much  "in  society,"  support  themselves  by 
entertaining  "paying  guests,"  while  others  are  stenog- 
raphers. The  former,  I  was  told,  by  the  way,  make  it 
a  practice  to  avoid  first-hand  business  contacts  with  their 
guests  by  sending  them  their  bills  through  the  mail,  and 
requiring  that  response  be  made  by  means  of  the  same 
impersonal  channel. 


221 


CHAPTER  XXI 
THE  CONFEDERATE  CAPITAL 

The  axis  of  the  earth  sticks  out  visibly  through  the  centre  of  each  and 
every  town  or  city. 

— Oliver  Wendell  Holmes. 

RICHMOND  is  the  Boston  of  Virginia ;  Norfolk- 
its  New  York.  The  comparison  does  not,  of 
course,  hold  in  all  particulars,  Richmond  being, 
for  instance,  larger  than  Norfolk,  and  not  a  seaport. 
Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  Boston  manages,  more  than  any 
seaport  that  I  know  of,  to  conceal  from  the  visitor  the 
signs  of  its  maritime  life;  wherefore  Richmond  looks 
about  as  much  like  a  port  as  does  the  familiar  part  of 
Boston. 

The  houses  on  the  principal  residence  streets  of  Rich- 
mond are  not  built  in  such  close  ranks  as  Boston  houses ; 
they  have  more  elbow-room ;  numbers  of  them  have  yards 
and  gardens;  and  there  is  not  about  Richmond  houses  the 
Bostonian  insistence  upon  red  brick ;  nevertheless  many 
houses  of  both  cities  give  off  the  same  suggestion  of  hav- 
ing long  been  lived  in  by  the  descendants  of  their  build- 
ers. So,  too,  though  the  Capitol  at  Richmond  has  little 
architectural  resemblance  to  Boston's  gold-domed  State 
House — the  former  having  been  copied  by  Thomas 
Jefferson  from  the  Alaison  Carree  at  Nimes,  and  being  a 


THE  CONFEDERATE  CAPITAL 
better  building  than  the  Massachusetts   State  House, 
and  better  placed — the  two  do,  nevertheless,   suggest 
each  other  in  their  gray  granite  solidity. 

It  is  perhaps  in  the  quality  of  soHdity— architectural, 
commercial,  social,  even  spiritual— that  Richmond  and 
Boston  are  most  alike.     Substantialness,  conservatism, 
tradition,  and  prosperity  rest  like  gray  mantles  over  both. 
Broad  Street  in  Richmond  is  two  or  three  times  as 
wide  as  Granby  Street,  Norfolk's  chief  shopping  street, 
and  for  this  reason,  doubtless,   its  traffic  seems  less, 
though  I  believe  it  is  in  fact  greater.     A  fine  street 
to  look  upon   at   night,   with   its   long,   even   rows   of 
clustered   boulevard    lights,    and    its    bright    windows. 
Broad  Street  in  the  daytime  is  a  disappointment,  be- 
cause, for  all  its  fine  spaciousness,  it  lacks  good  build- 
ings.    I  must  confess,  too,  that  I  was  disappointed  in  the 
appearance  of  the  women  in  the  shopping  crowds  on 
Broad  Street;  for,  as  every  one  knows,  Richmond  has 
been   famous   for   its  beauties.     In  vain  I  looked  for 
young  women  fitted  to  inherit  the  debutante  mantles  of 
such  nationally  celebrated  beauties  as  Miss  Irene  Lang- 
horne  (Mrs.  Charles  Dana  Gibson),  Miss  May  Handy 
(Mrs.  James  Brown  Potter),  Miss  Lizzie  Bridges  (Mrs. 
Hobson),  and  Miss  Sally  Bruce  (Mrs.  Arthur  B.  Kin- 
solving). 

In  the  ten  years  between  1900  and  1910  the  popula- 
tion of  Richmond  increased  50  per  cent.  Her  popula- 
tion by  the  last  census  was  about  130,000,  of  which  a 
third  is  colored.     Norfolk's  population  is  about  70,000, 

223 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

with  approximately  the  same  percentage  of  negroes. 
In  both  cities  there  is  much  new  building — offices  down- 
town, and  pretty  new  brick  homes  in  outlying  suburban 
tracts.  Likewise,  in  both,  the  charming  signs  of  other 
days  are  here  and  there  to  be  seen. 

Richmond  is  again  like  its  ancient  enemy,  Boston,  in 
the  wealth  of  its  historical  associations,  and  I  know  of 
no  city  which  gives  the  respectful  heed  to  its  own  his- 
tory that  Richmond  does,  and  no  State  which  in  this 
matter  equals  the  State  of  Virginia.  If  Richmond  was 
the  center  of  the  South  during  the  Civil  War,  Capitol 
Square  was,  as  it  is  to-day,  the  center  of  that  center. 
In  this  square,  in  the  shadow  of  Jefferson's  beautiful 
classic  capitol  building,  which  has  the  glowing  gray  tone 
of  one  of  those  water  colors  done  on  tinted  paper  by 
Jules  Guerin,  Confederate  soldiers  were  mustered  into 
service  under  Lee  and  Jackson.  Within  the  old  build- 
ing the  Confederate  Congress  met,  Aaron  Burr  was  tried 
for  treason,  and  George  Washington  saw%  in  its  present 
position,  his  own  statue  by  Houdon.  Across  the  way 
from  the  scjuare,  where  the  post  office  now  stands,  was 
the  Treasury  Building  of  the  Confederate  States,  and 
there  Jefferson  Davis  appeared  seven  times,  to  be  tried 
for  treason,  only  to  have  his  case  postponed  by  the  Fed- 
eral Government,  and  finally  dismissed.  East  of  the 
square  is  the  State  Library,  containing  a  remarka1)le  col- 
lection of  portraits  and  documents,  including  likenesses 
of  all  governors  of  Virginia  from  John  Smith  to  Tyler, 
a  portrait  of  Pocahontas,  and  the  bail  bond  of  Jefferson 

224 


THE  CONFEDERATE  CAPITAL 

Davis,  signed  by  Horace  Greeley,  Cornelius  Vanderbilt, 
Gerrit  Smith,  and  seventeen  other  distinguished  men  of 
the  day.  To  the  west  of  the  square  is  old  St.  Paul's 
Church,  with  the  pews  of  Lee  and  Davis.  It  was  while 
attending  service  in  this  church,  on  Sunday,  April  2, 
1865,  that  Davis  received  Lee's  telegram  from  Peters- 
burg, saying  that  Richmond  must  be  evacuated.  A 
block  or  two  west  of  the  church,  in  East  Franklin  Street, 
is  a  former  residence  of  Lee.  It  was  given  by  the  late 
Mrs.  Joseph  Bryan  and  her  sisters  to  the  Virginia  His- 
torical Society,  and  is  now,  appropriately  enough,  the 
home  of  that  organization. 

In  the  old  drawing  room,  now  the  office  of  the  Histori- 
cal Society,  I  found  Mr.  William  G.  Stanard,  the  corre- 
sponding secretary,  and  from  him  heard  something  of 
Lee's  life  there  immediately  after  the  War. 

By  the  Northerners  in  Richmond  at  that  time,  includ- 
ing the  Federal  troops  stationed  in  the  city,  Lee  was  of 
course  respected  and  admired,  while  by  the  whole  South 
he  was,  and  is  to-day,  adored.  As  for  his  own  ex- 
soldiers,  they  could  not  see  him  without  emotion,  and 
because  of  the  demonstrations  which  invariably  attended 
his  appearance  on  the  Richmond  streets,  he  went  out  but 
little,  passing  much  time  upon  the  back  porch  of  the 
house.  Here  most  of  the  familiar  Brady  photographs 
of  him  were  taken.  Brady  sent  a  young  photographer 
to  Richmond  to  get  the  photographs.  Lee  was  at  first 
disposed  to  refuse  to  be  taken,  but  his  family  persuaded 
him  to  submit,  on  the  ground  that  if  there  were  any 

225 


AMERICAN  ADM^.XTURES 

impertinence  in  the  request  it  was  not  the  fault  of  the 
young  man,  and  that  the  latter  might  lose  his  position  if 
he  failed  to  obtain  the  desired  pictures. 

Finding  the  continued  attention  of  the  crowds  too 
much  for  him,  the  general  left  Richmond  after  two 
months,  removing  to  a  small  house  in  Cumberland 
County,  on  the  James,  and  it  was  there  that  he  was  resid- 
ing when  called  to  the  presidency  of  Washington  College 
— now  Washington  and  Lee  University — at  Lexington, 
Virginia.  As  is  well  known,  he  accepted  this  offer, 
built  up  the  institution,  remained  its  president  until  the 
time  of  his  death,  and  now  lies  buried  in  the  university 
chapel. 

To  Mr.  Stanard  I  am  also  indebted  for  the  following 
information  regarding  John  Smith  and  Pocahontas : 

About  a  mile  below  Richmond,  in  what  is  now  the 
brickyard  region,  there  used  to  stand  the  residence  of  the 
Mayo  family,  a  place  known  as  Powhatan.  This  place 
has  long  been  pointed  out  as  the  scene  of  the  saving  of 
Smith  by  the  Indian  girl,  but  late  research  indicates 
that,  though  Smith  did  come  up  the  James  to  the  present 
site  of  Richmond,  his  capture  by  the  Indians  did  not 
occur  here,  but  in  the  vicinity  of  Jamestown.  Then  In- 
dians took  him  first  to  one  of  their  villages  on  York 
River,  near  the  present  site  of  West  Point,  Virginia,  and 
thence  to  a  place,  on  the  same  stream,  in  the  county 
of  Gloucester,  where  the  tribal  chief  resided.  I  was 
under  the  impression  that  this  worthy's  name  was  Pow^- 
hatan,  but  Mr.  Stanard  declared  "powhatan"  was  not 

226 


THE  CONFEDERATE  CAPITAL 

a  proper  name,  but  an  Indian  word  meaning  "chief." 
The  Virginia  Historical  Society  is  satisfied  that  Smith 
was  rescued  by  Pocahontas  at  a  point  about  nine  miles 
from  Williamsburg  on  the  west  side  of  York  River,  but 
there  are  historians  who  contend  that  the  whole  story 
of  the  rescue  is  a  fiction.  One  of  these  is  Dr.  Albert 
Bushnell  Hart,  of  Harvard,  who  lists  Smith  among 
^'Historical  Liars."  Virginians,  who  regard  Smith  as 
one  of  their  proudest  historical  possessions,  are  some- 
what disposed  to  resent  this  view,  but  it  appears  to  me 
that  there  is  at  least  some  ground  for  it.  Matthew  Page 
Andrews,  another  historian,  himself  a  Virginian,  points 
out  that  many  of  our  ideas  of  the  Jamestown  colony  have 
been  obtained  from  Smith's  history  of  the  settlement, 
which  he  wrote  in  England,  some  years  after  leaving 
Virginia. 

"From  these  accounts,"  says  Mr.  Andrews,  "we  get 
an  unfavorable  impression  of  Smith's  associates  in  the 
colony  and  of  the  management  of  the  men  composing  the 
popular  or  people's  party  in  the  London  Company.  As 
we  now  know  that  this  party  in  the  London  Company 
was  composed  of  very  able  and  patriotic  Englishmen,  we 
are  inclined  to  think  that  Captain  Smith  not  only  over- 
rated his  achievement,  but  was  very  unjust  to  his  fellow- 
colonists  and  the  Company." 

The  story  of  the  rescue  of  Smith  by  Pocahontas,  with 
the  strong  implication  that  the  Indian  girl  was  in  love 
with  him,  comes  to  us  from  Smith  himself.  We  know 
that  when  Pocahontas  was  nineteen  years  of  age  (seven 

2.2^ 


AMERICAN  ADVENTUR1':S 

years  after  the  Smith  rescue  is  said  to  have  occurred), 
she  married  John  Rolfe — the  first  Englishman  to  begin 
the  cultivation  of  the  tobacco  plant.  We  know  that  she 
was  taken  to  England,  that  she  w-as  welcomed  at  court 
as  a  princess,  that  she  had  a  son  born  in  England,  and 
that  she  herself  died  there  in  1617.  We  know  also  that 
her  son,  Thomas  Rolfe,  settled  in  Virginia,  and  that 
through  him  a  number  of  Virginians  trace  descent  from 
Pocahontas.  (Mr.  Andrews  points  out  that  in  191 5  one 
of  these  descendants  became  the  wife  of  the  President  of 
the  United  States.) 

But  we  know  also  that  John  Smith,  Ijrave  and  daring 
though  he  was,  w'as  not  above  twisting  and  embroidering 
a  tale  to  his  own  glorification.  \\'hile,  therefore,  it  is 
too  much  to  affirm  that  his  rescue  story  is  false,  it  is  well 
to  remember  that  Pocahontas  was  but  twelve  years  old 
when  the  rescue  is  said  to  have  occurred,  and  that  Smith 
waited  until  after  she  had  become  famous,  and  had  died, 
to  promulgate  his  romantic  story. 

Immediately  to  the  north  of  Capitol  Square  stands  the 
City  Hall,  an  ugly  building,  in  the  cellar  of  which  is  the 
Police  Court  presided  over  by  the  celebrated  and  highly 
entertaining  Judge  Crutchfield,  otherwise  known  as  "One 
John"  and  ''the  Cadi" — of  whom  more  presently.  A 
few  blocks  beyond  the  City  Plall,  in  the  old  mansion  at 
the  corner  of  East  Clay  and  Twelfth  Streets,  which  was 
the  "\A'hite  House  of  the  Confederacy,"  the  official  resi- 
dence of  Jefiferson  Davis  during  the  war,  is  the  Confeder- 

228 


\,  ,  H  1. 1^  d  'A'--- 


Judge Crutchfield — a  white-haired,  hook-nosed  man  of  more  than  seventy,  peering 
over  his  eyeglasses  with  a  look  of  shrewd,  merciless  divination 


THE  CONFEDERATE  CAPITAL 

ate  Museum — one  of  the  most  fascinating  museums  I 
ever  visited. 

Not  the  least  part  of  the  charm  of  this  museum  is  the 
fact  that  it  is  not  of  great  size,  and  that  one  may  conse- 
quently visit  it  without  fatigue;  but  the  chief  fascina- 
tion of  the  place  is  the  dramatic  personalness  of  its  ex- 
hibits. To  me  there  is  always  something  peculiarly  en- 
gaging about  intimate  relics  of  historic  figures,  and  it  is 
of  such  relics  that  the  greater  part  of  the  collection  of  the 
Confederate  Museum  consists.  In  one  show  case,  for 
example,  are  the  saddle  and  bridle  of  General  Lee,  and 
the  uniform  he  wore  when  he  surrendered.  The  effects 
of  General  Joseph  E.  Johnston  are  shown  in  another 
case,  and  in  still  another  those  of  the  picturesque  J.  E.  B. 
Stuart,  who,  as  here  one  may  see,  loved  the  Httle  touch 
of  individuality  and  dash  which  came  of  wearing  a 
feather  in  a  campaign  hat.  So  also  one  learns  some- 
thing of  Stonewall  Jackson  when  one  sees  in  the  cabinet, 
along  with  his  old  blue  hat  and  other  possessions,  the 
gold  spurs  which  were  given  to  him  by  the  ladies  of 
Baltimore,  beside  the  steel  spurs  that  he  zvore.  All 
Jackson's  personal  effects  were  very  simple. 

One  of  the  most  striking  relics  in  the  museum  is  the 
Great  Seal  of  the  Confederacy,  which  was  only  returned 
to  Richmond  within  the  last  few  years,  after  having  been 
lost  track  of  for  nearly  half  a  century — a  strange  chap- 
ter in  the  annals  of  the  Civil  War. 

Records  in  the  Library  of  Congress,  including  the 
Confederate  state  papers  purchased  by  the  United  States 

229 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Government  in  1872,  of  William  J.  Bromwell,  formerly 
a  clerk  in  the  Confederate  State  Department,  brought  to 
light,  a  few  years  ago,  the  fact  that  the  seal  was  in  the 
possession  of  Rear  Admiral  Thomas  O.  Selfridge,  U.  S. 
N.,  retired. 

At  the  time  of  the  evacuation  of  Richmond,  Bromwell 
carried  off  a  number  of  the  Confederate  state  papers, 
and  Mrs.  Bromwell  took  charge  of  the  seal,  transporting 
it  through  the  lines  in  her  bustle.  When  later,  through 
Colonel  John  T.  Pickett,  Bromwell  sold  the  papers  to 
the  Government,  Rear  Admiral  Selfridge — then  a  cap- 
tain— was  the  officer  assigned  to  go  to  Hamilton,  On- 
tario, to  inventory  and  receive  them.  It  is  said  that 
Pickett  gave  the  seal  to  Selfridge  at  about  this  time, 
first,  however,  having  a  duplicate  made.'  This  duplicate, 
or  a  copy  of  it,  was  later  offered  for  sale  as  the 
original,  but  was  found  to  be  spurious.  When  examina- 
tion of  the  Pickett  papers  by  Gaillard  Hunt,  of  the  Li- 
brary of  Congress,  finally  traced  the  original  seal  to  Rear 
Admiral  Selfridge,  an  effort  was  made  to  buy  it  back. 
In  191 2  three  Richmond  gentlemen,  Messrs.  Eppa  Hun- 
ton,  Jr.,  William  H.  White  and  Thomas  P.  Bryan,  pur- 
chased the  Seal  of  the  admiral  for  three  thousand  dol- 
lars, subject  to  proof  of  its  authenticity.  Mr.  St.  George 
Bryan  and  Mr.  William  Gray,  of  Richmond,  then  took 
the  seal  to  London,  where  the  makers  are  still  well- 
known  engravers.  Here,  by  means  of  hall  marks,  the 
identification  was  made  complete. 

No  less  appealing  than  the  relics  of  the  deceased  gov- 

230 


THE  CONFEDERATE  CAPITAL 

trnment  and  great  generals  who  are  gone,  are  some  of 
the  humbler  items  connected  with  the  deaths  of  privates 
in  the  ranks  of  North  and  South  alike.  One  of  the  most 
pathetic  was  a  small  daguerreotype  of  a  beautiful  young 
girl.  On  a  card,  beside  the  picture,  is  the  story  of  it, 
so  far  as  that  story  is  ever  likely  to  be  known : 

Picture  found  on  the  dead  body  of  an  unidentified  Federal 
soldier. 

Presented  by  C.  C  Calvert,  Upperville,  Va. 

"We  have  always  hoped,"  said  Miss  Susan  B.  Har- 
rison, house  regent  of  the  museum,  ''that  some  day 
some  one  would  come  in  and  recognize  this  little  pic- 
ture, and  that  it  would  find  its  way  back  to  those  who 
ought  to  have  it,  and  who  might  by  this  means  at  last 
discover  what  became  of  the  soldier  who  was  dear  to 
them." 

An  even  more  tragic  souvenir  is  a  letter  addressed  to 
A.  V.  Montgomery,  Camden,  Madison  County,  Missis- 
sippi, in  which  a  mortally  wounded  soldier  of  Confed- 
eracy bids  a  last  good-by  to  his  father.  The  letter  was 
originally  inclosed  with  one  from  Lieutenant  Ethelbert 
Fairfax,  C.  S.  A.,  informing  the  father  that  his  son 
passed  away  soon  after  he  had  written.  The  text, 
pitiful  and  heroic  as  it  is,  can  give  but  the  faintest  idea 
of  the  original,  wnth  its  feeble,  laborious  writing,  and  the 
dark-brown  spots  dappling  the  three  sheets  of  paper 
where  blood  from  the  boy's  mangled  shoulder  dripped 
upon  them  while  he  wrote : 

231 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Spotsylvania  County,  Va. 
May  10,  1864. 
Dear  Father: 

This  is  my  last  letter  to  you.  I  went  into  battle  this  evening 
as  courier  for  Gen'l  Heth.  I  have  been  struck  by  a  piece  of  shell 
and  my  right  shoulder  is  horribly  mangled  &  I  know  death  is 
inevitable.  I  am  very  weak  but  I  write  to  you  because  I  know 
you  would  be  delighted  to  read  a  word  from  your  dying  son.  I 
know  death  is  near,  that  I  w^ill  die  far  from  home  and  friends 
of  my  early  youth,  but  I  have  friends  here,  too,  who  are  kind 
to  me.  My  Friend  Fairfax  will  write  you  at  my  request  and 
give  you  the  particulars  of  my  death.  My  grave  will  be  marked 
so  that  you  may  visit  it  if  you  desire  to  do  so,  but  it  is  optionary 
with  you  whether  you  let  my  remains  rest  here  or  in  Missis- 
sippi. I  would  like  to  rest  in  the  graveyard  with  my  dear 
mother  and  brothers,  but  it  is  a  matter  of  minor  importance. 
Let  us  all  try  to  reunite  in  heaven.  I  pray  my  God  to  forgive 
my  sins  &  I  feel  that  his  promises  are  true,  that  he  will  forgive 
me  and  save  me.  Give  my  love  to  all  my  friends.  My  strength 
fails  me.  My  horse  &  my  equipments  will  be  left  for  you. 
Again  a  long  farewell  to  you.     May  we  meet  in  heaven. 

Your  Dying  Son, 

J.  R.  Montgomery. 


232 


CHAPTER  XXII 
RANDOM  RICHMOND  NOTES 

RICHMOND  may  again  be  likened  to  Boston  as 
a  literary  center.  In  an  article  published  some 
years  ago  in  "Book  News"  Alice  M.  Tyler  re- 
fers to  Colonel  William  Byrd,  who  founded  Richmond 
in  1733,  as  the  sprightliest  and  most  genial  native 
American  writer  before  Franklin.  In  the  time  of  Chief 
Justice  Marshall,  Richmond  had  a  considerable  group 
of  novelists,  historians  and  essayists,  but  the  great 
literary  name  connected  with  the  place  is  that  of  Edgar 
Allan  Poe,  who  spent  much  of  his  boyhood  in  the  city 
and  later  edited  the  ''Southern  Literary  Messenger." 
Matthew  Fontaine  Maury,  the  great  scientist,  mentioned 
in  an  earlier  chapter,  was,  at  another  time,  editor  of  the 
same  periodical,  as  was  also  John  Reuben  Thompson, 
"Poet  of  the  Confederacy,"  who  wrote,  among  other 
poems,  "Music  in  Camp,"  and  who  translated  Gustave 
Nadaud's  familiar  poem,  "Carcassonne." 

Thomas  Nelson  Page  made  his  home  in  Richmond  for 
thirty  years;  Amelie  Rives  was  born  there  and  still 
maintains  her  residence  in  Albemarle  County,  Virginia, 
while  among  other  writers  of  the  present  time  connected 
with  the  city  either  by  birth  or  long  association  are, 
Henry  Sydnor  Harrison,  Mary  Johnston,  Ellen  Glas- 

233 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

gow,  ATarion  Harland,  Kate  Langley  Bosher,  James 
Branch  Cabell,  Edward  Peple,  dramatist,  J.  H.  Whitty, 
biographer  of  Poe,  and  Colonel  W.  Gordon  McCabe,  sol- 
dier, historian,  essayist,  and  local  character — a  gentle- 
man upon  whose  shoulders  such  imported  expressions  as 
litterateur,  bon  viveiir,  and  raconteur  alight  as  naturally 
as  doves  on  friendly  shoulders. 

Colonel  McCabe  is  a  link  l)etween  present-day  Rich- 
mond and  the  traditions  and  associations  of  England. 
He  was  the  friend  of  Lord  Roberts,  he  introduced  Lord 
Tennyson  to  Bull  Durham  tobacco,  and,  as  is  fitting 
under  the  circumstances,  he  speaks  and  writes  of  a  hotel 
as  "an  hotel." 

Henry  Sydnor  Llarrison  did  his  first  writing  as  book 
reviewer  on  the  Richmond  "Times-Dispatch,"  of  which 
paper  he  later  became  paragrapher  and  daily  poet,  and 
still  later  editor  in  chief.  It  is  commonly  reported  in 
Richmond  that  the  characters  in  his  novel  ''Queed,"  the 
scenes  of  which  are  laid  in  Richmond,  were  ''drawn 
from  life."     I  asked  Mr.  Harrison  about  this. 

"When  the  book  appeared,"  he  said,  "I  was  much  em- 
barrassed by  the  disposition  of  Richmond  people — human 
and  natural,  I  suppose,  when  you  'know  the  author' — to 
identify  all  the  imaginary  persons  with  various  local 
characters.  Some  characteristics  of  the  political  boss  in 
my  story  were  in  a  degree  suggested  by  a  local  celebrity ; 
Stewart  Bryan  is  indicated,  in  passing,  as  Stewart 
Byrd;  and  the  bare  bones  of  a  historic  case,  altered  at 
will,  were  employed  in  another  connection.     But  I  think 

234 


RANDOM  RICHMOND  NOTES 

I  am  stating  the  literal  truth  when  I  say  that  no  figure 
in  the  book  is  borrowed  from  life." 

The  recent  residential  development  in  Richmond  has 
been  to  the  west  of  the  city  in  the  neighborhood  of  Monu- 
ment Avenue,  a  fine  double  drive,  with  a  parked  center, 
lined  with  substantial  new  homes,  and  having  at  inter- 
vals monuments  to  southern  heroes:  Lee,  Davis,  and 
J.  E.  B.  Stuart. 

The  parks  are  on  the  outskirts  of  the  city  and,  as  in 
most  other  cities,  it  is  in  these  outlying  regions  that  new 
homes  are  springing  up,  thanks  in  no  small  degree  to  the 
automobile.  The  Country  Club  of  Virginia  is  out  to 
the  west  of  the  town,  in  what  is  known  as  Westharnp- 
ton,  and  is  one  of  the  most  charming  clubs  of  its  kind 
in  the  South  or,  indeed,  in  the  country. 

Richmond  has  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  several 
of  the  most  curious  cemeteries  I  have  ever  seen.  Holly- 
wood Cemetery  stands  upon  rolling  bluffs  overlooking 
the  James,  and  under  its  majestic  trees  are  the  tombs  of 
many  famous  men,  including  James  Monroe,  John  Tyler, 
Jefferson  Davis  and  Fitzhugh  Lee.  An  inscription  on 
the  Davis  monument,  which  was  erected  by  the  widow 
and  daughter  of  the  President  of  the  Confederacy,  de- 
scribes him  as  "an  American  soldier  and  defender  of  the 
Constitution.''  At  the  back  of  the  pedestal  is  another 
inscription : 

President  of  the  Confederate 
States  of  America  1861-1865. 

235 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Faithful  to  All  Trusts,  a  Mar- 
tyr TO  Principle. 
He  Lived  and  Died  the  Most 
Consistent  of  American  Sol- 
diers AND  Statesmen, 

It  occasionally  happens  that,  instead  of  having  monu- 
ments because  in  life  they  were  famous,  men  are  made 
famous  after  death  by  the  inscriptions  placed  upon  their 
tombstones.  Such  is  the  case  with  James  E.  Valentine, 
a  locomotive  engineer  killed  in  a  collision  many  years 
ago.  The  Valentine  monument  in  Hollywood  Cemetery 
is  almost  as  well  known  as  the  monuments  erected  in 
memory  of  the  great,  the  reason  for  this  being  embodied 
in  the  following  verse  adorning  the  stone : 

Until  the  brakes  are  turned  on  Time, 
Life's  throttle  valve  shut  down, 
He  wakes  to  pilot  in  the  crew 
That  wear  the  martyr's  crown. 

On  schedule  time  on  upper  grade 
Along  the  homeward   section, 
He  lands  his  train  at  God's  roundhouse 
The  morn  of  resurrection. 

His  time  all  full,  no  wages  docked ; 
His  name  on  God's  pay  roll. 
And  transportation  through  to  Heaven, 
A  free  pass  for  his  soul. 

In  the  burial  ground  of  old  St.  John's  Church — the 
building  in  which  Patrick  Henry  delivered  his  "Give  me 

236 


RANDOM  RICHMOND  NOTES 

Liberty  or  give  me  Death"  oration — are  a  number  of  old 
gravestones  bearing  strange  inscriptions  which  appeal 
to  the  imagination,  and  also,  alas!-  elicit  sad  thoughts 
concerning  those  who  wrote  the  old-time  gravestone 
doggerel. 

The  custodian  of  the  church  is  glad  to  indicate  the  in- 
teresting stones,  but  is  much  more  taken  up  with  his  own 
gift  of  oratory,  as  displayed  when,  on  getting  visitors 
inside  the  church,  he  takes  his  place  on  the  spot  where 
Patrick  Henry  stood,  and  delivers  the  famous  oration. 
Having  done  this  to  us — or  perhaps  it  would  seem  more 
generous  to  say  foi-  us — the  caretaker  told  us  that  many 
persons  who  had  heard  him  had  declared  that  Patrick 
Henry  himself  would  have  had  a  hard  time  doing  it 
better.  But  when  he  threatened,  for  contrast,  to  de- 
liver the  oration  as  a  less  gifted  elocutionist  might  speak 
it,  my  companion,  in  whom  I  had  already  observed  signs 
of  restlessness,  interrupted  with  the  statement  that  we 
were  late  for  an  engagement,  and  fled  from  the  place, 
followed  by  me. 

In  certain  parts  of  the  city,  often  at  a  considerable 
distance  from  the  warehouse  and  factory  sections,  one 
may  occasionally  catch  upon  the  breeze  the  faint,  spicy 
fragrance  of  tobacco;  and  should  one  trace  these  pleas- 
ant scents  to  their  sources,  one  would  come  to  a  region 
of  factories  in  which  rich  brown  leaves  are  transformed 
into  pipe  tobacco,  plug  tobacco,  or  cigarettes.  In  the 
simpler  processes  of  this  work,  negro  men  and  women 

227 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

are  employed,  and  these  with  their  natural  picturesque- 
ness  of  pose  and  costume,  and  their  singing,  in  the  set- 
ting of  an  old  shadowy  loft,  make  a  tobacco  factory  a 
fascinating  place.  In  one  loft  you  will  see  negro  men 
and  boys  handling  the  tobacco  leaves  with  pitchforks, 
much  as  farm  hands  handle  hay;  in  another,  negro 
women  squatting  upon  boxes,  stemming  the  leaves,  or 
"pulling  up  ends,"  their  black  faces  blending  mys- 
teriously with  the  dark  shadow^s  of  beams  and  rafters. 
Here  the  air  is  laden  not  only  with  the  sweet  tobacco 
smell,  mixed  with  a  faint  scent  of  licorice  and  of  fruit, 
but  is  freighted  also  with  a  fine  brown  dust  which  is 
revealed  where  bars  of  sunlight  strike  in  through  the 
windows,  and  which  seems,  as  it  shifts  and  sparkles,  to 
be  a  visible  expression  of  the  smell. 

In  the  busy  season  ''street  niggers"  are  generally  used 
for  stemming,  which  is,  perhaps,  the  leading  part  of  the 
tobacco  industry  in  Richmond,  and  these  "street  nig- 
gers," a  wild  yet  childlike  lot,  who  lead  a  hand-to-mouth 
existence  all  year  round,  bring  to  the  tobacco  trade  a 
wealth  of  semi-barbaric  color.  To  give  us  an  idea  of  the 
character  of  a  Richmond  "street  nigger"  the  gentleman 
who  took  my  companion  and  me  through  the  factory  told 
us  of  having  wanted  a  piece  of  light  work  done,  and 
having  asked  one  of  these  negroes:  "Want  to  earn  a 
quarter?" 

To  which  the  latter  replied  without  moving  from  his 
comfortable  place  beside  a  sun-baked  brick  wall :  "No, 
boss.  Ah  got  a  quahtah." 

238 


RANDOM  RICHMOND  NOTES 

The  singing  of  the  negroes  is  a  great  feature  of  the 
stemming  department  in  a  tobacco  factory.  Some  of 
the  singers  become  locally  famous;  also,  I  was  told  by 
the  superintendent,  they  become  independent,  and  for 
that  reason  have  frequently  to  be  dismissed.  The  won- 
derful part  of  this  singing,  aside  from  the  fascinating 
harmonies  made  by  the  sweet,  untrained  negro  voices, 
is  the  utter  lack  of  prearrangement  that  there  is  about 
it.  Now  there  will  be  silence  in  the  loft;  then  there  will 
come  a  strange,  half-savage  cry  from  some  dark  corner, 
musical,  yet  seemingly  meaningless;  soon  a  faint 
humming  will  begin,  and  will  be  taken  up  by  men  and 
women  all  over  the  loft ;  the  humming  will  swell  into  a 
chant  to  which  the  workers  rock  as  their  black  hands 
travel  swiftly  among  the  brown  leaves ;  then,  presently, 
it  w411  die  away,  and  there  will  be  silence  until  they 
are  again  moved  to  song. 

From  shadowy  room  to  shadowy  room,  past  great 
dark  bins  filled  with  the  leaves,  past  big  black  steaming 
vats,  oozing  sweet-smelling  substances,  past  moist  fra- 
grant barrels,  always  among  the  almost  spectral  forms 
of  negroes,  treading  out  leaves  with  bare  feet,  working 
over  great  wicker  baskets  stained  to  tobacco  color,  piling 
up  wooden  frames,  or  operating  the  powerful  hydraulic 
presses  which  convert  the  soft  tobacco  into  plugs  of  con- 
crete hardness — so  one  goes  on  through  the  factory. 
The  browns  and  blacks  of  these  interiors  are  the  browns 
and  blacks  of  etchings;  the  color  of  the  leaves,  the  old 
dark  timbers,  the  blatk  faces  and  hands,  and  the  ragged 

239     . 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

clothing,  combined  with  the  humming  of  negro  voices, 
the  tobacco  fragrance,  and  the  golden  dust  upon  the 
air,  make  an  indescril)aljly  complete  harmony  of  shade, 
sound,  and  scent. 

The  department  in  which  the  pipe  tobacco  is  packed 
in  tins  is  a  very  different  sort  of  place;  here  white  labor 
is  employed:  a  great  many  girls  seated  side  by  side  at 
benches  working  with  great  digital  dexterity:  measur- 
ing out  the  tobacco,  folding  wax  paper  cartons,  filling 
them,  and  slipping  them  into  the  narrow  tins,  all  at  a 
rate  of  speed  so  great  as  to  defy  the  sight,  giving  a  sense 
of  fingers  flickering  above  the  bench  with  a  strange, 
almost  supernatural  sureness,  like  the  fingers  of  a 
magician  who  makes  things  disappear  before  your  eyes ; 
or  like  the  pictures  in  which  post-impressionist  and 
cubist  painters  attempt  to  express  motion. 

"May  I  speak  to  one  of  them?"  I  asked  the  superin- 
tendent. 

*'Sure,"  said  he. 

I  went  up  to  a  young  w^oman  w'ho  was  working,  if 
anything,  more  rapidly  than  the  other  girls  at  the  same 
bench. 

"Can  you  think,  while  you  are  doing  this?"  I  asked. 

"Yes,"  she  replied,  without  looking  up,  while  her 
fingers  flashed  on  ceaselessly. 

"About  other  things?" 

"Certainly." 

"How  many  cans  do  you  fill  in  a  day?" 

240 


RANDOM  RICHMOND  NOTES 

"About  thirty-four  to  thirty-five  hundred  on  the  aver- 
age." 

"May  I  ask  your  name?"     She  gave  it. 

I  took  up  one  of  the  small  identification  slips  which 
she  put  into  each  package,  and  wrote  her  name  upon  the 
back  of  it.  The  number  on  the  slip — for  the  purpose  of 
identifying  the  girl  who  packed  the  tin — was  220.  Let 
the  reader,  therefore,  be  informed  that  if  he  smokes 
Edgeworth  Ready  Rubbed,  and  finds  in  a  tin  a  slip 
bearing  that  number,  he  has  been  served  by  no  less  a 
person  than  Miss  Katie  Wise,  of  the  astonishingly  speedy 
fingers. 


241 


M 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
JEDGE  CRUTCHFIELD'S  COT 

Dar 's  a  powful  rassle  'twix  de  Good  en  de  Bad, 

En  de  Bad  's  got  de  ail-under  holt ; 
En  w'en  de  wuss  come,  she  come  i'on-clad, 

En  you  hatter  holt  yo'  bref   fer  de  jolt. 

— Uncle  Remus. 

Y  companion  and  I  had  not  traveled  far  into 
the  South  before  we  discovered  that  our  com- 
fort was  likely  to  be  considerably  enhanced  if, 
in  hotels,  we  singled  out  an  intelligent  bell  boy  and,  as 
far  as  possible,  let  this  one  boy  serve  us.  Our  mainstay 
in  the  Jefferson  Hotel  was  Charles  Jackson,  No.  144, 
or,  when  Charles  was  ''off,"  his  "side  partner,"  whom 
we  knew  as  Bob. 

Having  one  day  noticed  a  negro  in  convict's  stripes, 
but  without  a  guard,  raking  up  leaves  in  Capitol  Square, 
I  asked  Charles  about  the  matter. 

"Do  they  let  the  convicts  go  around  unguarded?"  I 
inquired. 

"They 's  some  of  'em  can,"  said  he.  "Those  is 
trustees." 

This  talk  of  "trustees"  led  to  other  things  and  finally 
to  a  strong  recommendation,  by  Charles,  of  the  Rich- 
mond Police  Court,  as  a  place  of  entertainment. 

242 


JEDGE  CRUTCHFIELD'S  COT 

"Is  it  interesting?"  I  asked. 

"Inter-resting  f  Yes,  suh!  Judge  Crutchfield  he 
suttinly  is.  He  done  chahge  me  twenty-six  dollahs  and 
fo'ty  cents.  My  brothah,  he  got  in  fight  down  street, 
heah.  Some  niggers  set  on  him.  I  went  to  he'p  him 
an'  p'leeceman  got  me.  He  say  I  was  resistin'  p'leece. 
I  ain't  resisted  no  p'leece!  No,  suh!  Not  me!  But 
Judge  Crutchfield,  you  can't  tell  him  nothin'.  'Tain't 
no  use  to  have  a  lawyer,  nuther.  Judge  Crutchfield 
don't  want  no  lawyers  in  his  co't.  Like  's  not  he  cha'ge 
you  mo'  fo'  havin'  lawyer.  Then  you  got  pay  lawyer, 
too. 

''Friend  mine  name  Billy.  One  night  Billy  he  wake 
up  and  heah  some  one  come  pushin'  in  his  house.  He 
hollah:     'Who  thar?' 

"Othah  nigger  he  kep'  pushin'  on  in.  He  say :  This 
Gawge.' 

"Billy,  he  say:  'Git  on  out  heah,  niggah!  Ain't  no 
Gawge  live  heah!' 

"Othah  niggah,  he  say:  'Don't  make  no  diff'unce 
Gawge  live  heah  o'  not.  He  sure  comin'  right  in! 
Ain't  nobody  heah  kin  stop  ol'  Gawge!  He  eat  'em 
alive,  Gawge  do !  He  de  boss  of  Jackson  Ward.  Bet- 
tah  say  yo'  prayehs,  niggah,  fo'  yo'  time — has — come!' 

"Billy  he  don't  want  hit  nobody,  but  this-heah  Gawge, 
he  drunk,  an'  Billy  have  t'  hit  'im.  Well,  suh,  what  you 
think  this  Gawge  done?  He  go  have  Billy  'rested. 
Yes,  suh!  But  you  can't  tell  Judge  Crutchfield  nothin'. 
Next  mo'nin'  in  p'leece  co't  he  say  to  Billy :     'I  fine  you 

243 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

twenty-five  dollahs,  fo'  hittin'  this  old  gray-haihed  man.' 
Yes,  suh!  'at 's  a  way  Judge  Crutchfield  is.  Can't  tell 
Jiifu  nothin'.  He  jes'  set  up  theh  on  de  bench,  an'  he 
chaw  tobacco,  an'  he  heah  de  cases,  an'  he  spit,  an'  evvy 
time  he  spit  he  spit  a  fine.  Yes,  siih!  He  spit  like  dis: 
Tfst!  Five  dollahs !—Tf St !  Ten  dollahs!'— Pfst! 
Fifteen  dollahs!' — just  how  he  feel.  He  suttinly  is 
some  judge,  'at  man." 

Encouraged  by  this  account  of  police  court  justice  as 
meted  out  to  the  Richmond  negro,  my  companion  and  I 
did  visit  Justice  Crutchfield's  court. 

The  room  in  the  basement  of  the  City  Hall  was 
crowded.  All  the  benches  were  occupied  and  many  per- 
sons, white  and  black,  were  standing  up.  Among  the 
members  of  the  audience — for  the  performance  is  more 
like  a  vaudeville  show  with  the  judge  as  headliner  than 
like  a  serious  tribunal — I  noticed  several  actors  and  act- 
resses from  a  company  which  was  playing  in  Richmond 
at  the  time — these  doubtless  drawn  to  the  place  by  the 
fact  that  \\'alter  C.  Kelly,  billed  in  vaudeville  as  "The 
Virginia  Judge,"  is  commonly  reported  to  have  taken 
Judge  Crutchfield  as  a  model  for  his  exceedingly  amus- 
ing monologue.  Mr.  Kelly  himself  has,  however,  told 
me  that  his  inspiration  came  from  hearing  the  late  Judge 
J.  D.  G.  Brown,  of  Newport  News,  hold  court. 

At  the  back  of  the  room,  in  what  appeared  to  be  a  sort 
of  steel  cage,  were  assembled  the  prisoners,  all  of  them, 
on  this  occasion,  negroes ;  while  at  the  head  of  the  cham- 
ber behind  the  usual  police-court  bulwark,  sat  the  judge 

244 


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JEDGE  CRUTCHFIELD'S  COT 

— a  white-haired,  hook-nosed  man  of  more  than  seventy, 
peering  over  the  top  of  his  eyeglasses  with  a  look  of 
shrewd,  merciless  divination. 

''William  Taylor !"  calls  a  court  officer. 

A  negro  is  brought  from  the  cage  to  the  bar  of 
justice.  He  is  a  sad  spectacle,  his  face  adorned  with 
a  long  strip  of  surgeon's  plaster.  The  judge  looks  at 
him  over  his  glasses.     The  hearing  proceeds  as  follows : 

Court  Officer  (to  prisoner) — Get  over  there! 
(Prisoner  obeys.) 

Judge  Crutch  field — Sunday  drunk — Five  dollars. 

It  is  over. 

The  next  prisoner  is  already  on  his  way  to  the  bar. 
He  is  a  short,  wide  negro,  very  black  and  tattered.  A 
large  black  negress,  evidently  his  consort,  arises  as  wit- 
ness against  him.     The  case  goes  as  follows : 

Judge  Crutchfield — Drunk? 

The  Wife  (looking  contemptuously  at  her  spouse) — 
Drunk?     Yass,  Jedge,  drunk.     Always  drunk." 

The  Prisoner  (meekly) — I  ain't  been  drunk,  Jedge. 

The  Judge — Yes,  you  have.  I  can  see  you  Ve  got 
your  sign  up  this  morning.  (Looking  toward  cage  at 
back  of  room)  :  Make  them  niggers  stop  talkin'  back 
there !     (To  the  wife) :     What  did  he  do,  Mandy ? 

The  Wife  (angrily) — ^Jedge,  he  come  bustin'  in,  and 
he  come  so  fast  he  untook  the  do'  off 'n  de  hinges ;  den  'e 
begins — " 

The  Judge  (to  the  prisoner,  sarcastically) — You 
was  n't  drunk,  eh  ? 

245 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

The  Prisoner  (weakly) — I  might  of  had  a  drink  oh 
two. 

The  Judge  (severely) — Was — you — drunk f 

The  Prisoner — No,  suh,  Jedge.  Ah  was  n't  drunk. 
Ah  don't  think  no  man  's  drunk  s'  long  's  he  can  navi- 
gate, Jedge.     I  don't — 

The  Judge — Oh,  yes,  he  can  be!  lie  can  navigate 
and  navigate  mighty  mean ! — Ten  dollars. 

(At  this  point  an  officer  speaks  in  a  low  tone  to  the 
judge,  evidently  interceding  for  the  prisoner. ) 

The  Judge  (loudly) — No.  That  fine  's  very  small. 
If  it  ain't  worth  ten  dollars  to  get  drunk,  it  ain't  wnrlh 
nothing  at  all.     Next  case ! 

(While  the  next  prisoner  is  being  brought  u]),  the 
judge  entertains  his  audience  with  one  of  the  humorous 
monologues  for  which  he  is  famous,  and  which,  together 
with  the  summary  "justice"  he  metes  out,  keeps  ripples 
of  laughter  running  through  the  room) :  I  'm  going  to 
get  drunk  myself,  some  day,  and  see  what  it  does  to  me. 
[Laughter.]     Mebbe  I  '11  take  a  little  cocaine,  too. 

A  Negro  Voice  (from  back  of  room,  deep  bass,  and 
very  fervent) — Oh,  no-o-o!  Don't  do  dat,  Jedge! 
[More  laughter.] 

The  Judge — Where's  that  prisoner?  If  he  was  a 
Baptist,  he  would  n't  be  so  slow. 

(The  prisoner,  a  yellow  negro,  is  brought  to  the  bar. 
His  trousers  are  mended  with  a  large  safety  pin  and  his 
other  equipment  is  to  match.) 

The  Judge  (inspecting  the  prisoner  sharply) — You 

246 


JEDGE  CRUTCHFIELD'S  CO'T 

ain't  a  Richmond  nigger.     I  can  tell  that  to  look  at  you. 

The  Prisoner — No,  suh,  Jedge.     That 's  right. 

The  Judge — Where  you  from?  You  're  from  No'th 
Ca'lina,  ain't  you? 

The  Prisoner — Yas,  suh,  Jedge. 

The  Judge — Six  months ! 

(A  great  laugh  rises  from  the  courtroom  at  this.  On 
inquiry  we  learn  that  the  "joke"  depends  upon  the 
judge's  well-known  aversion  for  negroes  from  North 
Carolina.) 

Only  recently  I  have  heard  Walter  C  Kelly  as  "The 
Virginia  Judge."  Save  for  a  certain  gentle  side  which 
Mr.  Kelly  indicates,  and  of  which  I  saw  no  signs  in 
Judge  Crutchfield,  I  should  say  that,  even  though  Judge 
Crutchfield  is  not  his  model,  the  suggestion  of  him  is 
strongly  there.  Two  of  Mr.  Kelly's  "cases"  are  par- 
ticularly reminiscent  of  the  Richmond  Police  Court. 
One  is  as  follows: 

The  Judge — First  case — Sadie  Anderson. 

The  Prisoner — Yassir !     That 's  me ! 

The  Judge — Thirty  days  in  jail.  That's  me! 
Next  case. 

The  other : 

The  Judge — What 's  your  name? 

The  Prisoner — Sam  Williams. 

The  Judge — How  old  are  you,  Sam? 

The  Prisoner — Just  twenty-four. 

The  Judge — You  '11  be  just  twenty-five  when  you  get 
out.     Next  case ! 

247 


CHAPTER  XXIV 
NORFOLK  AND  ITS  NEIGHBORHOOD 

JUST  as  New  York  looks  newer  than  Boston,  but 
is  actually  older,  Norfolk  looks  newer  than  Rich- 
mond. Business  and  population  grow  in  Rich- 
mond, but  you  do  not  feel  them  growing  as  you  do  in 
Norfolk.  You  feel  that  Richmond  business  men  already 
have  money,  whereas  in  Norfolk  there  is  less  old  wealth 
and  a  great  deal  more  scrambling  for  new  dollars.  Also 
you  feel  that  law  and  order  count  for  more  in  Richmond 
than  in  Norfolk,  and  that  the  strict  prohibition  law  which 
not  long  ago  became  effective  in  Virginia  will  be  more 
easily  enforced  in  the  capital  than  in  the  seaport.  Nor- 
folk, in  short,  likes  the  things  New  York  likes.  It  likes 
tall  office  buildings,  and  it  dotes  on  the  signs  of  com- 
mercial activity  by  day  and  social  activity  by  night. 
Furthermore,  from  the  tops  of  some  of  the  high  build- 
ings the  place  actually  looks  like  a  miniature  New  York : 
the  Elizabeth  River  masquerading  as  the  East  River; 
Portsmouth,  with  its  navy  yard,  pretending  to  be  Brook- 
lyn, while  some  old-time  New  York  ferryboats,  running 
between  the  two  cities,  assist  in  completing  the  illusion. 
In  the  neighboring  city  of  Newport  News,  Norfolk  has 
its  equivalent  for  Jersey  City  and  Hoboken,  while  Will- 

248 


NORFOLK  AND  ITS  NEIGHBORHOOD 

oug-hby  Spit  protrudes  into  Hampton  Roads  like  Sandy 
Hook  reduced  to  miniature. 

The  principal  shopping  streets  of  Norfolk  and  Rich- 
mond are  as  unlike  as  possible.  Broad  Street,  Rich- 
mond, is  very  wide,  and  is  never  overcrowded,  whereas 
Granby  Street,  Norfolk  (advertised  by  local  enthusiasts 
as  "the  livest  street  in  Virginia,"  and  appropriately 
spanned,  at  close  intervals,  by  arches  of  incandescent 
lights),  is  none  too  wide  for  the  traffic  it  carries,  with 
the  result  that,  during  the  afternoon  and  evening,  it  is 
truly  very  much  alive.  To  look  upon  it  at  the  crowded 
hours  is  to  get  a  suggestion  of  a  much  larger  city  than 
Norfolk  actually  is — a  suggestion  which  is  in  part  ac- 
counted for  by  the  fact  that  Norfolk's  spending  popula- 
tion, drawn  from  surrounding  towns  and  cities,  is  much 
greater  than  the  number  of  its  inhabitants. 

Norfolk's  extraordinary  growth  in  the  last  two  or 
three  decades  may  be  traced  to  several  causes:  to  the 
fertility  of  the  soil  of  the  surrounding  region,  which, 
intensively  cultivated,  produces  rich  market-garden 
crops,  making  Norfolk  a  great  shipping  point  for 
"truck";  to  the  development  of  the  trade  in  peanuts, 
which  are  grown  in  large  quantities  in  this  corner  of 
Virginia ;  to  a  great  trade  in  oysters  and  other  sea-food, 
and  to  the  continually  increasing  importance  of  the 
Norfolk  navy  yard. 

In  connection  with  the  navy  Norfolk  has  always 
figured  prominently,  Hampton  Roads  having  been  a 
favorite  naval  rendezvous  since  the  early  days  of  the 

249 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

American  fleet.  Now,  however,  it  is  announced  that 
the  cry  of  our  navy  for  a  real  naval  base — something  we 
have  never  had,  though  all  other  important  navies  have 
them,  Britain  alone  having  three — has  been  heard  in 
Washington,  and  that  Norfolk  has  been  selected  as  the 
site  for  a  base.  This  is  an  important  event  not  only  for 
the  Virginia  seaport,  but  for  the  United  States. 

Farmers  who  think  they  are  in  a  poor  business  will  do 
well  to  investigate  Norfolk's  recent  history.  The 
"trucking"  industry  of  Norfolk  is  said  to  amount  in  the 
aggregate  to  twelve  or  fourteen  million  dollars  annually, 
and  many  fortunes  have  been  made  from  it.  The 
pioneer  ''trucker"  of  the  region  was  ]Mr.  Richard  Cox. 
A  good  many  years  ago  Mr.  Cox  employed  a  German 
boy,  a  blacksmith  by  trade,  named  Henry  Kern.  Kern 
finally  branched  out  for  himself.  \\^hen,  in  191 5,  he 
died,  his  real  estate  holdings  in  Norfolk  and  Portsmouth 
were  valued  at  two  million  dollars,  all  of  which  had  been 
made  from  garden  truck.  He  was  but  one  of  a  consid- 
erable class  of  wealthy  men  whose  fortunes  have  sprung 
from  the  same  source. 

Many  of  the  truck  farms  have  access  to  the  water. 
The  farmers  bring  their  produce  to  the  city  in  their  own 
boats,  giving  the  port  a  picturesque  note.  At  Norfolk  it 
is  transferred  to  steamers  which  carry  it  to  New  York, 
Philadelphia,  Boston,  Providence,  Baltimore  and  Wash- 
ington. Lately  a  considerable  amount  of  truck  has 
been  shipped  west  by  rail,  as  well. 

Hundreds  of  acres  of  ground  in  the  vicinity  of  the 

250 


NORFOLK  AND  ITS  NEIGHBORHOOD 

city  are  under  glass  and  large  crops  of  winter  vegetables 
are  raised.  Kale  and  spinach  are  being  grown  and  har- 
vested throughout  the  cold  months;  strawberries,  pota- 
toes, beans,  peas,  cucumbers,  cabbage,  lettuce  and  other 
vegetables  follow  through  the  spring  and  summer,  run- 
ning on  into  the  fall,  when  the  corn  crop  becomes  impor- 
tant. Corn  is  raised  chiefly  by  the  peanut  farmer, 
whose  peanuts  grow  between  his  corn-rows. 

While  the  banks  are  "carrying"  the  peanut  farmers, 
pending  their  fall  harvest,  the  activities  of  the  ''truck- 
ers" are  at  their  height,  so  that  the  money  loaned  to  one 
class  of  agriculturist  is  replaced  by  the  deposits  of  the 
other  class ;  and  by  the  same  token,  of  course,  the  peanut 
farmers  are  depositing  money  in  the  banks  when  the 
''truckers"  want  to  borrow.  This  situation,  one  judges, 
is  not  found  objectionable  by  Norfolk  and  Portsmouth 
bankers,  and  I  have  been  told  that,  as  a  corollary,  these 
banks  have  never  been  forced,  even  in  times  of  dire 
panic,  to  issue  clearing  house  certificates,  but  have  al- 
ways paid  cash. 

Norfolk  has  grown  so  fast  and  has  so  rapidly  replaced 
the  old  with  the  new,  that  the  visitor  must  keep  his  eyes 
open  if  he  would  not  miss  entirely  such  lovely  souvenirs 
of  an  earlier  and  easier  life,  as  still  remain.  Who  would 
imagine,  seeing  it  to-day,  that  busy  Granby  Street  had 
ever  been  a  street  of  fine  residences?  Yet  a  very  few 
years  have  passed  since  the  old  Newton,  Tazwell,  Dick- 
son and  Taylor  residences  surrendered  to  advancing 
commerce  and  gave  place  to  stores  and  office  buildings — 

251 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

the  two  last  mentioned  having  been  replaced  by  the  Dick- 
son Building  and  the  Taylor  Building,  erected  less  than 
fifteen  years  ago. 

Freemason  Street  is  the  highway  which,  more 
than  any  other,  tells  of  olden  times.  For  though  the 
downtown  end  of  this  lovely  old  thoroughfare  has  lapsed 
into  decay,  many  beautiful  mansions,  dating  from  long 
ago,  are  to  be  seen  a  few  blocks  out  from  the  busier 
portion  of  the  city.  Among  these  should  be  mentioned 
the  Whittle  house,  the  H.  N.  Castle  house,  and  particu- 
larly the  exquisite  ivy-covered  residence  of  Air.  Barton 
Myers,  at  the  corner  of  Bank  Street.  The  city  of  Nor- 
folk ought,  I  think,  to  attempt  to  acquire  this  house  and 
preserve  it  (using  it  perhaps  as  a  memorial  museum  to 
contain  historical  relics)  to  show  what  has  been,  in  Nor- 
folk, as  against  what  is,  and  to  preach  a  silent  sermon  on 
the  high  estate  of  beauty  from  which  a  fine  old  city  may 
fall,  in  the  name  of  progress  and  commercial  growth. 

To  the  credit  of  Norfolk  be  it  said  that  old  St.  Paul's 
Church,  with  its  picturesque  churchyard  and  tombs,  is 
excellently  cared  for  and  properly  valued  as  a  pre- 
Revolutionary  relic.  The  church  was  built  in  1730,  and 
was  struck  by  a  British  cannon-ball  when  Lord  Dunmore 
bombarded  the  place  in  1776.  Baedeker  tells  me,  how- 
ever, that  the  cannon-ball  now  resting  in  the  indenta- 
tion in  the  wall  of  the  church  is  "not  the  original." 

When  I  say  that  St.  Paul's  is  properly  valued  I  mean 
that  many  citizens  told  my  companion  and  me  to  be  sure 
to  visit  it.     I  observe,  however — and  I  take  it  as  a  sign 

252 


y. 


A 


NORFOLK  AND  ITS  NEIGHBORHOOD 

of  the  times  in  Norfolk — that  an  extensive,  well-printed 
and  much  illustrated  book  on  Norfolk,  issued  by  the 
Chamber  of  Commerce,  contains  pictures  of  banks, 
docks,  breweries,  mills,  office  buildings,  truck  farms,  pea- 
nut farms,  battleships,  clubhouses,  hotels,  hospitals,  fac- 
tories, and  innumerable  new  residences,  but  no  picture 
of  the  church,  or  of  the  lovely  old  homes  of  Freemason 
Street.  Nor  do  I  find  in  the  booklet  any  mention  of  the 
history  of  the  city  or  the  surrounding  region — although 
that  region  includes  places  of  the  greatest  beauty  and 
interest:  among  them  the  glorious  old  manor  houses  of 
the  James  River;  the  ancient  and  charming  town  of 
Williamsburg,  second  capital  of  the  Virginia  colony,  and 
seat  of  William  and  Mary  College,  the  oldest  college  in 
the  United  States  excepting  Harvard;  Yorktown, 
"Waterloo  of  the  Revolution";  many  important  battle- 
fields of  the  Civil  War;  Hampton  Institute,  the  famous 
negro  industrial  school  at  Hampton,  nearby;  the  lovely 
stretch  of  water  on  which  the  Monitor  met  the  Merri- 
mac  ^ ;  the  site  of  the  first  English  settlement  in  America 

1  The  Merrimac,  originally  a  Federal  vessel  of  wooden  construction 
was  sunk  by  the  Union  forces  when  they  abandoned  Norfolk.  A  Con- 
federate captain,  John  M.  Brooke,  raised  her,  equipped  her  with  a  ram, 
and  covered  her  with  boiler  plate  and  railroad  rails.  She  is  called  the 
first  ironclad.  While  she  was  being  reconstructed  John  Ericsson  was 
building  his  Monitor  in  New  York.  The  turret  was  first  used  on  this 
vessel.  It  is  worth  noting  that  at  the  time  of  the  engagement  between 
these  two  ships  the  Monitor  was  not  the  property  of  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment, but  belonged  to  C.  S.  Bushnell,  of  New  Haven,  who  built  her  at 
his  own  expense,  in  spite  of  the  opposition  of  the  Navy  Department  of 
that  day.  The  Government  paid  for  her  long  after  the  fight.  It  should  also 
be  noted  that  the  Merrimac  did  not  fight  under  that  name,  but  as  a  Con- 
federate ship  had  been  rechristened  Virginia.    The  patriotic  action  of  Mr. 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

at  Jamestown,  and,  for  mystery  and  desolation,  the 
Dismal  Swamp  with  Lake  Drummond  at  its  heart.  But 
then,  I  suppose  it  is  natural  that  the  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce mind  should  thrust  aside  such  things  in  favor  of 
the  mighty  "goober,"  which  is  a  thing  of  to-day,  a  thing 
for  which  Norfolk  is  said  to  be  the  greatest  of  all  mar- 
kets. For  is  not  history  dead,  and  is  not  the  man  who 
made  a  fortune  out  of  a  device  for  shelling  peanuts  with- 
out causing  the  nuts  to  drop  in  two,  still  living? 

And  yet  the  modernness  on  which  Norfolk  so  evidently 
prides  herself  is  not  something  to  be  lightly  valued. 
Fine  schools,  fine  churches  and  miles  of  pleasant,  recently 
built  homes  are  things  for  any  American  city  to  rejoice 
in.  Therefore  Norfolk  rejoices  in  Ghent,  her  chief 
modern  residence  district,  which  is  penetrated  by  arms 
of  the  Elizabeth  River,  so  that  many  of  the  houses  in 
this  part  of  the  city  look  out  upon  pretty  lagoons,  dotted 
over  with  all  manner  of  pleasure  craft.  Less  than 
twenty  years  ago,  the  whole  of  what  is  now  Ghent  was  a 
farm,  and  there  are  other  suburban  settlements,  such  as 
Edgew^ater,  Larchmont,  Winona  and  Lochhaven,  out  in 
the  direction  of  Hampton  Roads,  which  have  grown  up 
in  the  last  six  or  eight  years.  The  Country  Club  of 
Norfolk,  with  a  very  pleasing  club-house  on  the  water, 
and  an  eighteen-hole  golf  course,  is  at  Lochhaven,  and 
the  new  naval  base  is,  I  believe,  to  be  located  somewhat 

Bushnell  is  recalled  by  the  fact  that,  only  recently,  Mr.  Godfrey  L.  Cabot, 
of  Boston,  has  agreed  to  furnisli  funds  to  build  the  torpedoplane  designed 
by  Admiral  Fiske  as  a  weapon  wherewith  to  attack  the  German  fleet 
within  its  defenses  at  Kiel. 

^54 


NORFOLK  AND  ITS  NEIGHBORHOOD 

farther  out,  on  the  site  of  the  Jamestown  Exposition. 

Norfolk  is  well  provided  with  nearby  seaside  recrea- 
tion places,  of  which  probably  the  most  attractive  is 
Virginia  Beach,  facing  the  ocean.  Ocean  View,  so 
called,  is  on  Chesapeake  Bay,  and  there  are  summer  cot- 
tage colonies  at  Willoughby  Spit  and  Cape  Henry.  On 
the  bay  side  of  Cape  Henry  is  Lynnhaven  Inlet  connect- 
ing Lynnhaven  Bay  and  River  with  Chesapeake  Bay. 
From  Lynnhaven  Bay  come  the  famous  oysters  of  that 
name,  now  to  be  had  in  most  of  the  large  cities  of  the 
East,  but  which  seemed  to  me  to  taste  a  little  better  at 
the  Virginia  Club,  in  Norfolk,  than  oysters  ever  tasted 
anywhere.  Perhaps  that  was  because  they  were  real 
Lynnhavens,  just  as  the  Virginia  Club's  Smithfield  ham 
is  real  Smithfield  ham  from  the  little  town  of  Smith- 
field,  Virginia,  a  few  miles  distant.  On  the  bank  of  the 
Lynnhaven  River  is  situated  the  Old  Donation  farm  with 
a  ruined  church,  and  an  ancient  dwelling  house  which 
w^as  used  as  the  first  courthouse  in  Princess  Anne 
County;  and  not  far  distant  from  this  place  is  Witch 
Duck  Point,  where  Grace  Sherwood,  after  having  been 
three  times  tried,  and  finally  convicted  as  a  witch,  was 
thrown  into  the  river. 

The  several  waterside  places  I  have  mentioned  are 
more  or  less  local  in  character,  but  there  is  nothing  local 
about  Fortress  Monroe,  on  Old  Point  Comfort,  just 
across  Hampton  Roads,  which  has  for  many  years  been 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  highly  individualized  idling 
places  on  the  Atlantic  Coast. 

255 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

The  old  moated  fortress,  the  interior  of  which  is  more 
hke  some  lovely  garden  of  the  last  century  than  a  military 
post,  remains  an  important  coast  artillery  station,  and  is 
a  no  less  lovely  spot  now  than  when  our  grandparents 
went  there  on  their  wedding  journeys,  stopping  at  the 
old  Hygiea  Hotel,  long  since  gone  the  way  of  old  hotels. 

The  huge  Chamberlin  Hotel,  however,  remains  appar- 
ently unchanged,  and  is  to-day  as  spacious,  comfortable 
and  homelike  as  when  our  fathers  and  mothers,  or 
perhaps  we  ourselves,  stopped  there  years  ago.  The 
Chamberlin,  indeed,  seems  to  have  the  gift  of  perennial 
youth.  I  remember  a  ball  which  was  given  there  in 
honor  of  Admiral  Sampson  and  the  officers  of  his  fleet, 
after  the  Spanish  War.  The  ballroom  was  so  full  of 
naval  and  military  uniforms  that  I,  in  my  somber  civilian 
clothing,  felt  wan  and  lonely.  Most  of  the  evening  I 
passed  in  modest  retirement,  looking  out  upon  the  bril- 
liant scene  from  behind  a  potted  palm.  And  yet,  w^hen 
my  companion  and  I,  now  in  our  dotage,  recently  visited 
the  Chamberlin,  there  stood  the  same  potted  palm  in  the 
same  place.  Or  if  it  was  not  the  same,  it  was  one 
exactly  like  it. 

The  Chamberlin  is  of  course  a  great  headquarters  for 
army  and  navy  people,  and  we  observed,  moreover,  that 
honeymooning  couples  continue  to  infest  it — for  For- 
tress Monroe  has  long  ranked  with  Washington  and 
Niagara  Falls  as  a  scene  to  be  visited  upon  the  wedding, 
journey. 

There  they  all  were,  as  of  old:  the  young  husband 

256 


NORFOLK  AND  ITS  NEIGHBORHOOD 

scowling  behind  his  newspaper  and  pretending  to  read 
and  not  to  be  thinking  of  his  pretty  Httle  wife  across  the 
breakfast  table;  the  fat  blonde  bride  being  continually 
photographed  by  her  adoring  mate — now  leaning  against 
a  pile  on  the  pier,  now  seated  on  a  wall,  with  her  feet 
crossed,  now  standing  under  a  live-oak  within  the  for- 
tress; also  there  was  the  inevitable  young  pair  who 
simply  could  n't  keep  their  hands  off  from  each  other ;  we 
came  upon  them  constantly — in  the  sun-parlor,  where 
she  would  be  seated  on  the  arm  of  his  chair,  running  her 
hand  through  his  hair;  wandering  in  the  eventide 
along  the  shore,  with  arms  about  each  other,  or  going  in 
to  meals,  she  leading  him  down  the  long  corridor  by  his 
''ickle  finger". 

I  recall  that  it  was  as  we  were  going  back  to  Norfolk 
from  Old  Point  Comfort,  having  dinner  on  a  most  excel- 
lent large  steamer,  running  to  Norfolk  and  Cape  Charles, 
that  my  companion  remarked  to  me,  out  of  a  clear  sky, 
that  he  had  made  up  his  mind,  once  for  all,  that,  come 
what  might,  he  would  never,  never,  never  get  married. 
No,  never ! 


257 


CHAPTER  XXV 
COLOXEL  TAYLOR  AXD  GENERAL  LEE 

Forth  from  its  scabbard  all  in  vain 

Bright  flashed  the  sword  of  Lee; 
'T  is  shrouded  now  in  its  sheath  again, 
It  sleeps  the  sleep  of  our  noble  slain, 
Defeated,  yet  without  a  stain. 

Proudly  and  peacefully. 

— Abram  J.  Ryan 

THOUGH  I  had  often  heard,  before  going  into 
the  South,  of  the  devotion  of  that  section  to 
the  memory  of  General  Robert  E.  Lee,  I  never 
fully  realized  the  extent  of  that  devotion  until  I  began  to 
become  a  little  bit  acquainted  with  Virginia.  1  remem- 
ber being  struck,  while  in  Norfolk,  with  the  fact  that 
portraits  of  General  Lee  were  to  be  seen  in  many  offices 
and  homes,  much  as  one  might  expect,  at  the  present 
time,  to  find  portraits  of  Jofifre  and  Xivelle  in  the  homes 
of  France,  or  of  Haig  in  the  homes  of  Britain.  It  is  not 
enough  to  say  that  the  memory  of  Lee  is  to  the  South 
like  that  of  Napoleon  I  to  France,  for  it  is  more.  The 
feeling  of  France  for  X^apoleon  is  one  of  admiration,  of 
delight  in  a  national  military  genius,  of  hero-worship, 
but  there  is  not  intermingled  with  it  the  quality  of  pure 
affection  which  fully  justifies  the  use  of  the  word  love, 

258 


COLONEL  TAYLOR  AND  GENERAL  LEE 

in  characterizing  the  feeling  of  the  South  for  its  great 
miHtary  leader — the  man  of  whom  Lord  Wolseley  said : 
''He  was  a  being  apart  and  superior  to  all  others  in  every 
way ;  a  man  with  whom  none  I  ever  knew,  and  very  few 
of  whom  I  ever  read  are  worthy  to  be  compared ;  a  man 
who  was  cast  in  a  grander  mould  and  made  of  finer 
metal  than  all  other  men." 

Nor  is  this  love  surprising,  for  whereas  Napoleon  was 
a  self-seeking  man,  and  one  whose  personal  character 
was  not  altogether  admirable  in  other  respects,  and 
whereas  he  could  hardly  be  said  to  typify  France's  ideal 
of  everything  a  gentleman  should  be,  Lee  sought  noth- 
ing for  himself,  was  a  man  of  great  nobility  of  charac- 
ter, and  was  in  perfection  a  Virginia  gentleman.  At  the 
end,  moreover,  where  Napoleon's  defeat  was  that  of  an 
aspirant  to  conquest,  glory  and  empire,  Lee's  defeat  w^as 
that  of  a  cause,  and  the  cause  was  regarded  in  the  entire 
South  as  almost  holy,  so  that,  in  defeat,  the  South  felt 
itself  martyred,  and  came  to  look  upon  its  great  general 
with  a  love  and  veneration  unequaled  in  history,  and 
much  more  resembling  the  feeling  of  France  for  the 
canonized  Joan  of  Arc,  than  for  the  ambitious  Corsican. 

When,  therefore,  my  companion  and  I  heard,  while  in 
Norfolk,  that  Colonel  Walter  H.  Taylor,  president  of 
the  Marine  Bank  of  that  city,  had  served  through  the 
Civil  War  on  General  Lee's  staff,  we  naturally  became 
very  anxious  to  meet  him;  and  I  am  glad  to  say  that 
Colonel  Taylor,  though  at  the  time  indisposed  and  con- 
fined to  his  home,  was  so  kind  as  to  receive  us. 

259 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

He  was  seated  in  a  large  chair  in  his  Hbrary,  on  the 
second  floor  of  his  residence,  a  pleasant  old-fashioned 
brick  house  at  the  corner  of  York  and  Yarmouth  Streets 
— a  slender  man,  not  very  tall,  1  judged  (though  1  did 
not  see  him  standing),  not  very  strong  at  the  moment, 
but  with  nothing  of  the  decrepitude  of  old  age  about 
him,  for  all  his  seventy-seven  years.  Upon  the  contrary 
he  was,  in  appearance  and  manner,  delightfully  alert, 
with  the  sort  of  alertness  which  lends  to  some  men  and 
women,  regardless  of  their  years,  a  suggestion  of  per- 
petual youthfulness.  Such  alertness,  in  those  who  have 
lived  a  long  time,  is  most  often  the  result  of  persistent 
intellectual  activity,  and  the  sign  of  it  is  usually  to  be 
read  in  the  eyes.  Colonel  Taylor's  keen,  dark,  observ- 
ant, yet  kindly  eyes,  were  perhaps  his  finest  feature, 
though,  indeed,  all  his  features  were  fine,  and  his  head, 
with  its  well-trimmed  white  hair  and  mustache,  was  one 
of  great  distinction. 

Mrs.  Taylor  (of  whom  we  had  previously  been  warned 
to  beware,  because  she  had  not  yet  forgiven  the  "Yan- 
kees" for  their  sins)  was  also  present:  a  beautiful  old 
lady  of  unquenchable  spirit,  in  whose  manner,  though 
she  received  us  with  politeness,  we  detected  lurking 
danger. 

And  why  not  ?  Do  not  women  remember  some  things 
longer  than  men  remember  them?  Do  not  the  sweet- 
hearts who  stayed  at  home  remember  the  continual  dull 
dread  they  suffered  while  the  men  they  loved  faced 
danger,  whereas  the  absent  lovers  were  at  least  in  part 

260 


COLONEL  TAYLOR  AND  GENERAL  LEE 

compensated  for  the  risks  they  ran,  by  the  continual 
sense  of  high  adventure  and  achievement? 

Mrs.  Taylor  was  Miss  EHzabeth  Selden  Saunders, 
daughter  of  Captain  John  L.  Saunders  of  Virginia,  who 
died  in  i860,  in  the  service  of  his  country,  a  commander 
in  the  United  States  Navy.  When  the  war  broke  out 
Miss  Saunders,  wishing  to  serve  the  Confederate  Gov- 
ernment, became  a  clerk  in  the  Surgeon  General's  office, 
at  Richmond,  and  there  she  remained  while  Colonel 
Taylor,  whose  training  at  the  Virginia  Military  Insti- 
tute, coupled  with  his  native  ability,  made  him  valuable 
as  an  officer,  followed  the  fortunes  of  General  Lee,  part 
of  the  time  as  the  general's  aide-de-camp,  and  the  rest 
of  the  time  as  adjutant-general  and  chief  of  staff  of  the 
Army  of  Northern  Virginia,  in  which  capacities  he  was 
present  at  all  general  engagements  of  the  army,  under 
Lee. 

On  April  2,  1865,  when  Lee's  gallant  but  fast  dwin- 
dling army,  short  of  supplies,  and  so  reduced  in  numbers 
as  to  be  no  longer  able  to  stand  against  the  powerful 
forces  of  Grant,  was  evacuating  its  lines  at  Petersburg, 
when  it  was  evident  that  the  capital  of  the  Confederacy 
was  about  to  fall,  and  the  orders  for  retreat  had  been 
despatched  by  Colonel  Taylor,  in  his  capacity  as  adjutant 
— then  the  colonel  went  to  his  commander  and  asked  for 
leave  of  absence  over  night,  for  the  purpose  of  going  to 
Richmond  and  being  married.  He  tells  the  story  in  his 
exceedingly  interesting  and  valuable  book,  "General  Lee 
— His  Campaigns  in  Virginia": 

261 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

At  the  close  of  the  day's  work,  when  all  was  in  readiness  for 
the  evacuation  of  our  lines  under  cover  of  the  darkness  of  night, 
I  asked  permission  of  General  Lee  to  ride  over  to  Richmond  and 
to  rejoin  him  early  the  next  morning,  telling  him  that  my  mother 
and  sisters  were  in  Richmond  and  that  I  would  like  to  say 
good-hy  to  them,  and  that  my  sweetheart  was  there,  and  we  had 
arranged,  if  practicable,  to  be  married  that  night.  He  expressed 
some  surprise  at  my  entertaining  such  a  purpose  at  that  time, 
but  when  I  explained  to  him  that  the  home  of  my  bride-elect  was 
ia  the  enemy's  lines,  that  she  was  alone  in  Richmond  and  em- 
ployed in  one  of  the  departments  of  the  government,  and  wished 
to  follow  the  fortunes  of  the  Confederacy  should  our  lines  be  re- 
established farther  South,  he  promptly  gave  his  assent  to  my 
j)lans.  I  galloped  to  the  railroad  station,  then  at  Dunlops,  on  the 
north  side  of  the  river,  where  I  found  a  locomotive  and  several 
cars,  constituting  the  "  ambulance  train,"  designed  to  carry  to 
Richmond  the  last  of  the  wounded  of  our  army  requiring  hospital 
treatment.  I  asked  the  agent  if  he  had  another  engine,  when, 
pointing  to  one  rapidly  receding  in  the  direction  of  Richmond,  he 
replied,  "  Yonder  goes  the  only  locomotive  we  have  besides  the 
one  attached  to  this  train."  Turning  my  horse  over  to  the  courier 
who  accompanied  me,  with  directions  to  join  me  in  Richmond  as 
soon  as  he  could,  I  mounted  the  locomotive  in  waiting,  directed 
the  engineer  to  detach  it  from  the  cars  and  to  proceed  to  overtake 
the  engine  ahead  of  us.  It  was  what  the  sailors  call  a  stern  chase 
and  a  long  one.  We  did  not  overtake  the  other  locomotive  until 
it  had  reached  Falling  Creek,  about  three-fourths  of  the  distance, 
when  I  transferred  to  it  and  sent  the  other  back  to  Petersburg. 
I  reached  Richmond  without  further  incident,  and  soon  after 
midnight  I  was  married  to  Elizabeth  Selden  Saunders.  ...  As 
will  be  readily  understood,  the  occasion  was  not  one  of  great 
hilarity,  though  I  was  very  happy ;  my  eyes  were  the  only  dry  ones 
in  the  company.  .  .  . 

The  people  of  Richmond  were  greatly  excited  and  in  despair 
in  the  contemplation  of  the  abandonment  of  their  beautiful  city 
by  our  troops.     General  Lee  had  for  so  long  a  time  thwarted 

262 


COLONEL  TAYLOR  AND  GENERAL  LEE 

the  designs  of  his  powerful  adversaries  for  the  capture  of  the 
city,  and  seemed  so  unfailing  and  resourceful  in  his  efiforts  to 
hold  them  at  bay,  that  the  good  people  found  it  difficult  to  realize 
that  he  was  compelled  at, last  to  give  way.  There  was  universal 
gloom  and  despair  at^the  thought  that  at  the  next  rising  of  the 
sun  the  detested  Federal  soldiers  would  take  possession  of  the 
city  and  occupy  its  streets.  The  transportation  companies  were 
busily  engaged  in  arranging  for  the  removal  of  the  public  stores 
and  of  the  archives  of  the  government.  A  fire  in  the  lower  part 
of  the  city  was  fiercely  raging,  and  added  greatly  to  the  excite- 
ment. 

Somewhere  near  four  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  3d  of 
April  I  bade  farewell  to  all  my  dear  ones,  and  in  company  with 
my  brother-in-law.  Colonel  John  S.  Saunders,  proceeded  toward 
Mayo's  Bridge,  which  we  crossed  to  the  south  side  of  the  James, 
in  the  lurid  glare  of  the  fire,  and  within  the  sound  of  several 
heavy  explosions  that  we  took  to  be  the  final  scene  in  the  career  of 
the  Confederate  navy,  then  disappearing  in  smoke  on  the  James 
River,  near  Rockets. 

Before  we  departed  from  the  colonel's  library,  which 
we  felt  obliged  to  do  much  sooner  than  we  wished  to, 
owing  to  the  condition  of  his  health,  he  called  our  atten- 
tion to  an  oil  portrait  of  his  old  commander,  which  occu- 
pied the  place  of  honor  above  the  mantelpiece,  and  asked 
his  daughters  to  let  us  see  his  scrap-book,  containing 
personal  letters  from  General  Lee,  Jefferson  Davis,  and 
other  distinguished  men,  as  well  as  various  war  docu- 
ments of  unusual  interest. 

We  felt  it  a  great  privilege  to  handle  these  old  letters 
and  to  read  them,  and  the  charm  of  them  was  the  greater 
for  the  affection  in  which  the  general  held  Colonel  Tay- 
lor, as  evidenced  by  the  tone  in  which  he  wrote.     To  us 

263 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

it  was  a  wonderful  evening.  .  .  .  And  it  still  seems  to 
me  wonderful  to  think  that  I  have  met  and  talked  with 
a  man  who  issued  Lee's  orders,  who  rode  forth  with  Lee 
when  he  went  to  meet  Grant  in  conference  at  Appomat- 
tox, just  before  the  surrender,  who  once  slept  under  the 
same  blanket  with  Lee,  who  knew  Lee  as  well  perhaps 
as  one  man  can  know  another,  and  under  conditions  cal- 
culated to  try  men  to  the  utmost. 

As  adjutant,  Colonel  Taylor  took  an  active  part  in 
arranging  details  of  surrender  and  parole.     He  says: 

Each  officer  and  soldier  was  furnished  for  his  protection  from 
arrest  or  annoyance  with  a  sHp  of  paper  containing  his  parole, 
signed  by  his  commander  and  countersigned  by  an  officer  of  the 
Federal  army. 

I  signed  these  paroles  for  all  members  of  the  staff,  and  when 
my  own  case  was  reached  I  requested  General  Lee  to  sign  mine, 
which  I  have  retained  to  the  present  time. 

This  document,  wdth  Colonel  Taylor's  name  and  title 
in  his  own  handwriting,  and  the  signature  of  General 
Lee,  I  am  able  to  reproduce  here  through  the  courtesy 
of  the  colonel's  daughters,  ^Irs.  William  B.  Baldwin 
and  Miss  Taylor,  of  Norfolk.  It  is  the  only  parole 
which  was  signed  personally  by  General  Lee. 


!  ^^fe^i;  ^^.pporanttox   Com-t    r"i<">u.-^t  .   \'a. 

I  ^^r!;lSf    iif  ^    '^-   4/ Ay     I,  lUfiokiUrrhmitt  of  Vie  Armij  of  y(.,thcnt   Virguiiu.  haf  per- 
tt^^y-j    lul.iito-'  I'l  'ju  h  /lis  I'Oi'ie.  "nil  time  n-iniii»  XMidisfiirhed. 


264 


COLONEL  TAYLOR  AND  GENERAL  LEE 

On  the  back  of  the  little  slip,  which  is  of  about  the 
size  of  a  bank  check,  is  the  countersignature  of  George 
H.  Sharpe,  Assistant  Provost  Marshal  general : 


U^f^a^p-T^^^^ 


Following  his  parole  Colonel  Taylor  rode  with  Gen- 
eral Lee  to  Richmond.  The  general  seemed  to  be  in  a 
philosophical  frame  of  mind,  but  thought  much  of  the  fu- 
ture. The  subject  of  the  surrender  and  its  consequences 
was  about  exhausted.    The  Colonel  tells  of  one  incident : 

On  the  route  General  Lee  stopped  for  the  night  near  the  resi- 
dence of  his  brother,  ]\Ir.  Carter  Lee,  in  Powhatan  County ;  and 
ahhough  importuned  by  his  brother  to  pass  the  night  under  his 
roof,  the  general  persisted  in  pitching  his  tent  by  the  side  of  the 
road  and  going  into  camp  as  usual.  This  continued  self-denial 
can  only  be  explained  upon  the  hypothesis  that  he  desired  to  have 
his  men  know  that  he  shared  their  privations  to  the  very  last. 

This  was  perfectly  in  character  with  Lee.  Through- 
out the  War,  we  learn  from  Colonel  Taylor's  book,  the 
general  used  the  army  ration,  and  lived  the  army  life. 
He  would  not  take  up  his  quarters  in  a  house,  because 
he  wished  to  share  the  lot  of  his  men,  and  also  because 
he  feared  that,  in  the  event  of  the  house  falling  into  the 
hands  of  the  enemy,  the  very  fact  of  its  having  been 
occupied  by  him  might  possibly  cause  its  destruction.     It 

265 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

was  only  during  the  last  year  of  the  War,  when  his 
health  was  somewhat  impaired,  that  he  consented  some- 
times to  vary  this  rule. 

Lee's  chivalrous  nature  is  well  shown  forth  in  his 
famous  General  Orders,  No.  73,  issued  at  Chambers- 
burg,  Pennsylvania,  a  few  days  before  Gettysburg. 

After  congratulating  the  troops  on  their  good  con- 
duct the  general  continued  as  follows: 

There  have,  however,  been  instances  of  forgetfulness  on  the 
part  of  some  that  they  have  in  keeping  the  yet  unsullied  reputation 
of  the  army,  and  that  the  duties  exacted  of  us  hy  civilization  and 
Christianity  are  not  less  obligatory  in  the  country  of  the  enemy 
than  in  our  own. 

The  commanding  general  considers  that  no  greater  disgrace 
could  befall  the  army,  and  through  it  our  whole  people,  than  the 
perpetration  of  the  barbarous  outrages  ujwn  the  unarmed  and 
defenseless,  and  the  wanton  destruction  of  private  property,  that 
have  marked  the  course  of  the  enemy  in  our  own  country. 

Such  proceedings  not  only  degrade  the  perpetrators  and  all 
connected  with  them,  but  are  subversive  to  the  discipline  and  effi- 
ciency of  the  army,  and  destructive  of  the  ends  of  our  present 
movement.  It  must  be  remembered  that  we  make  war  only  upon 
armed  men,  and  that  we  cannot  take  vengeance  for  the  wrongs 
our  people  have  suffered  without  lowering  ourselves  in  the  eyes 
of  all  whose  abhorrence  has  been  excited  by  the  atrocities  of  our 
enemies,  and  off'ending  against  Him  to  whom  vengeance  bclong- 
eth,  without  whose  favor  and  support  our  efforts  must  all  prove 
in  vain.  The  commanding  general,  therefore,  earnestly  exhorts 
the  troops  to  abstain  with  most  scrupulous  care  from  unnecessary 
or  wanton  injury  to  private  property,  and  he  enjoins  upon  all 
officers  to  arrest  and  bring  to  summary  punishment  all  who  shall 
in  any  way  offend  against  the  orders  on  this  subject. 

R.  E.  Lee, 
General. 
266 


COLONEL  TAYLOR  AND  GENERAL  LEE 

Truly,  a  document  to  serve  as  a  model  for  warriors 
o£  all  future  generations,  albeit  one  showing  an  utter 
lack  of  *'Kultur"! 

Said  Charles  Francis  Adams,  of  Massachusetts:  'T 
doubt  if  a  hostile  force  ever  advanced  into  an  enemy's 
country,  or  fell  back  from  it  in  retreat,  leaving  behind 
it  less  cause  of  hate  and  bitterness  than  did  the  Army 
of  Northern  Virginia  in  that  memorable  campaign." 

After  the  war,  Colonel  Taylor  and  his  wife  settled  in 
Norfolk,  where,  within  a  very  short  time,  a  United 
States  grand  jury  indicted  Jefferson  Davis  and  General 
Lee  for  treason— this,  in  the  case  of  Lee,  being  in  direct 
violation  of  the  terms  of  surrender.  When  Grant 
learned  of  the  shameful  action  of  the  grand  jury  he  com- 
plained to  Washington  and  caused  the  proceedings 
against  Lee  to  be  dropped. 

In  Colonel  Taylor's  scrap-book  I  found  a  letter  written 
by  Lee  before  the  indictment  had  been  quashed,  referring 

to  the  subject: 

Richmond,  Va. 

June  17,  1865. 
My  dear  Colonel : 

I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  your  letter  of  the  13th.  I 
had  heard  of  the  indictment  by  the  grand  jury  at  Norfolk,  and 
made  up  my  mind  to  let  the  authorities  take  their  course.  I  have 
no  wish  to  avoid  any  trial  the  government  may  order,  and  cannot 
flee.  I  hope  others  may  be  unmolested,  and  that  you  at  least  may 
be  undisturbed. 

I  am  sorry  to  hear  that  our  returned  soldiers  cannot  obtain 
employment.  Tell  them  they  must  all  set  to  work,  and  if  they 
cannot  do  what  they  prefer,  do  what  they  can.     Virginia  wants 

267 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

all  their  aid,  all  their  support,  and  the  presence  of  all  her  sons 
to  sustain  and  recuperate  her.  They  must  therefore  put  them- 
selves in  a  position  to  take  part  in  her  government,  and  not  be 
deterred  by  obstacles  in  their  way.  There  is  much  to  be  done 
which  they  only  can  do. 

\'ery  truly  yours, 

R.  E.  Lee. 

As  time  went  on,  and  the  more  gaping  wounds  began 
to  heal,  Colonel  Taylor's  letters  from  the  general  took 
in  many  cases  a  lighter  and  hai)pier  tone.  After  some 
years,  when  four  daughters  had  been  born  to  Colonel  and 
"Sirs.  Taylor,  while  yet  they  had  no  son,  the  general 
chafYed  them  gently  on  the  subject:  "Give  my  congrat- 
ulations to  Airs.  Taylor,"  he  wrote.  "Tell  her  I  hope 
that  when  her  fancy  for  girls  is  satisfied  (mine  is  ex- 
orbitant) she  will  begin  upon  the  boys.  We  must  have 
somebody  to  work  for  them." 

One  of  the  colonel's  sons  was  present  when  I  came 
upon  this  letter. 

"And  you  see,"  he  smiled,  "my  father  obeyed  his  old 
commander  to  the  last,  for  the  next  baby  was  a  boy,  and 
the  next,  and  the  next,  and  the  next,  until  there  were 
as  many  boys  as  girls  in  our  family." 

Colonel  Taylor  died  at  his  home  in  Norfolk,  March  i, 
1 91 6,  and  on  the  subsequent  June  15,  was  followed  by 
his  wife. 

His  death  leaves  but  three  members  of  Lee's  stafif 
surviving,  namely.  Rev.  Giles  B.  Cooke,  of  Portsmouth, 
Virginia,  Inspector  General ;  Major  Henry  E.  Young, 

268 


COLONEL  TAYLOR  AND  GENERAL  LEE 

of  Charleston,  South  CaroHna,  Judge  Advocate  Gen- 
eral; and  Colonel  T.  M.  R.  Talcott,  of  Richmond,  Vir- 
ginia, Aide-de-Camp.  Of  these  officers  only  the  first 
two  surrendered  with  General  Lee,  Colonel  Talcott  hav- 
ing left  the  staff  by  promotion  in  1863. 

Yes,  two  of  them  surrendered,  but  if  we  are  to  be- 
lieve Charles  Francis  Adams  we  cannot  say  that  Lee 
and  his  forces  were  actually  vanquished,  for  as  the  Mas- 
sachusetts soldier-author  put  it: 

*'Lee  and  the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia  never  sus- 
tained defeat.  Finally  succumbing  to  exhaustion,  to 
the  end  they  were  not  overthrown  in  fight." 


269 


THE  HEART  OF  THE  SOUTH 


CHAPTER  XXVI 
RALEIGH  AND  JOSEPHUS  DANIELS 

Jedge  Crutchfield  give  de  No'th  Ca'Iina  nigger  frown ; 
De  mahkets  says  ouh  tehapin  am  secon'-rate, 
An'   Mistuh  Daniels,  he  call  Raleigh  his  hum  town. 
— I  wondah  what  kin  be  de  mattuh  wid  ouh  State? 

JUST  as  it  is  the  fashion  in  the  Middle  West  to 
speak  jestingly  of  Kansas,  it  is  the  fashion  in  the 
South  to  treat  lightly  the  State  of  North  Carolina. 
And  just  as  my  companion  and  I.  long  ago,  on  another 
voyage  of  discovery,  were  eager  to  get  into  Kansas  and 
find  out  what  that  fabulous  Commonwealth  was  really 
like,  so  we  became  anxious,  as  we  heard  the  gossip  about 
the  "Old  North  State,"  to  enter  it  and  form  our  own 
conclusions.  The  great  drawback  to  an  attempt  to  see 
North  Carolina,  however,  lies  in  the  fact  that  North 
Carolina  is,  so  to  speak,  spread  very  thin.  It  has  no 
great  solid  central  city  occupying  a  place  in  its  thoughts 
and  its  affairs  corresponding  to  that  occupied  by  Rich- 
mond, in  its  relation  to  Virginia.  Like  Mississippi,  it  is 
a  State  of  small  towns  and  small  cities.  Its  metropolis, 
Charlotte,  had,  by  the  1910  census,  less  than  35,000  in- 
habitants; its  seaport,  Wilmington,  a  little  more  than 
25,000;  its  capital,  Raleigh,  less  than  20,000;  its  beau- 
tiful mountain  resort,  Asheville,  fourth  city  in  the  State, 
less  than  19,000. 

273 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

I  hasten  to  add  that  the  next  census  will  undoubtedly 
show  considerable  growth  in  all  these  cities.  In  Raleigh 
I  found  every  one  insistent  on  this  point.  The  town  is 
growing;  it  is  a  going  place;  a  great  deal  of  new  build- 
ing is  in  progress;  and  when  you  ask  about  the  popula- 
tion, progressive  citizens  are  prepared  to  do  much  better 
by  their  city  than  the  census  takers  did,  some  years  ago. 
They  talk  thirty  thousand,  instead  of  twenty,  and  they 
ar6  ready  with  astonishing  statistics  about  the  number 
of  students  in  the  schools  and  colleges  as  compared  with 
the  total  population  of  the  city — statistics  showing  that 
though  Raleigh  is  not  large  she  is  progressive.  Which 
is  quite  true. 

I  recollect  that  Judge  Francis  D.  Winston,  former 
Lieutenant  Governor  of  the  State,  United  States  Dis- 
trict Attorney,  and  the  most  engaging  raconteur  in  the 
Carolinas,  contributed  a  story  to  a  discussion  of 
Raleigh's  population,  which  occurred,  one  evening,  at  a 
dinner  at  the  Country  Club. 

*'A  promoter,"  he  said,  "was  once  trying  to  borrow 
money  on  a  boom  town.  He  went  to  a  banker  and 
showed  him  a  map,  not  of  what  the  town  was,  but  of 
what  he  claimed  it  was  going  to  be.  'Here,'  he  said, 
*is  where  the  town  hall  will  stand.  In  this  lot  will  be 
the  opera  house.  Over  here  we  are  going  to  have  a 
beautiful  park.  And  on  this  corner  we  are  going  to 
erect  a  tall  granite  office  building.' 

"  'But,'  said  the  banker,  coldly,  'we  lend  money  only 
on  the  basis  of  population.' 

274 


RALEIGH  AND  JOSEPHUS  DANIELS 

"  That 's  all  right,'  returned  the  promoter.  'Meas- 
ured by  any  known  standard  except  an  actual  count,  we 
have  a  population  of  two  hundred  thousand.'  " 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  point  this  tale  more  than  to 
recommend  it  to  the  attention  of  the  secretary  of  the 
Chamber  of  Commerce  in  every  city  in  the  United 
States. 

Raleigh  is  situated  within  seven  miles  of  the  exact 
center  of  North  Carolina.  The  land  on  which  the  city 
stands  was  purchased  by  the  State,  in  1792,  from  a  man 
named  Joel  Lane,  whose  former  house  still  stands.  The 
town  was  then  laid  out  in  a  one  mile  square,  with  the 
site  selected  for  the  State  Capitol  directly  at  the  center 
of  it,  and  lots  were  sold  off  by  the  State  to  individuals, 
the  proceeds  of  these  sales  being  used  to  build  the  Cap- 
itol. As  a  result  the  parks,  streets  and  sidewalks  of 
the  original  old  town  still  belong  to  the  State  of  North 
Carolina,  and  the  city  has  jurisdiction  over  them  only  by 
courtesy  of  the  State  government.  Raleigh  has,  of 
course,  much  outgrow^n  its  original  dimensions,  and  the 
government  of  the  town,  outside  the  original  square  mile 
at  the  center,  is  as  in  other  towns. 

While  Raleigh  has  not  the  look  of  age  which  char- 
acterizes many  old  southern  cities,  causing  them  to  de- 
light the  eye  and  the  imagination,  its  broad  streets  have 
here  and  there  a  building  old  enough  to  remove  from 
the  town  any  air  of  raw  newness,  and  to  make  it  a  home- 
like looking  place.     The  sidewalks  are  wide;  when  we 

275 


AMERICAN  ADX'EXTURES 

were  in  Raleigh  those  of  the  principal  streets  were 
paved  largely  with  soft-colored  old  red  bricks,  which, 
however,  were  being  taken  up  and  replaced  with  cement. 
Not  being  a  resident  of  Raleigh,  and  consequently  not 
having  been  obliged  to  tread  the  rough  brick  ])avements 
daily,  I  was  sorry  to  witness  this  victory  of  utility  over 
beauty. 

One  of  the  pleasant  old  buildings  is  the  ^'arborough 
Hotel,  at  which  my  companion  and  I  stayed.  The  Var- 
borough  is  an  exceedingly  good  hotel  for  a  city  of  the 
size  of  Raleigh,  especially,  it  may  be  added,  when  thai 
city  is  in  the  South.  The  Capitol,  standing  among  trees 
in  a  small  park,  also  gathers  a  fine  flavor  from  age.  In 
one  of  the  many  simple  dignified  apartments  of  this 
building  my  companion  and  I  were  introduced  to  the 
gentleman  who  was  governor  of  the  State  at  the  time 
of  our  visit.  It  seemed  to  me  that  he  had  a  look  both 
worn  and  apprehensive,  and  that,  while  we  talked,  he 
was  waiting  for  something.  I  don't  know  how  I  gath- 
ered this  impression,  but  it  came  to  me  definitely.  After 
we  had  departed  from  the  executive  chamber  I  asked 
the  gentleman  who  had  taken  us  there  if  the  governor 
was  ill. 

"No,"  he  replied.  "All  our  governors  look  like  that 
after  they  have  been  in  office  for  a  while." 

"From  overwork?" 

"No,  from  an  overworked  jest — the  jest  about  'what 
the  Governor  of  North  Carolina  said  to  the  Governor  of 
South  Carolina.'     Every  one  who  meets  the  governor 

276 


RALEIGH  AND  JOSEPHUS  DANIELS 

thinks  of  that  joke  and  believes  confidently  that  no  one 
has  ever  before  thought  of  this  application  of  it.  So 
they  all  pull  it  on  him.  For  the  first  few  months  our 
governors  stand  it  pretty  well,  but  after  that  they  begin 
to  break  down.  They  feel  they  ought  to  smile,  but  they 
can't.  They  begin  to  dread  meeting  strangers,  and  to 
show  it  in  their  bearing.  When  in  private  life  our  gov- 
ernor had  a  very  pleasant  expression,  but  like  all  the 
others,  he  has  acquired,  in  office,  the  expression  of  an 
iron  dog." 

Raleigh's  most  widely-known  citizen  is  Josephus 
Daniels,  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  and  publisher  of  the 
Raleigh  "News  and  Observer."  This  paper,  published 
in  the  morning,  and  the  "Times,"  a  rival  paper,  pub- 
lished in  the  afternoon,  are,  I  believe,  the  only  dailies  in 
the  city. 

Mr.  Daniels  has  been  so  much  discussed  that  I  was 
greatly  interested  in  hearing  what  Raleigh  had  to  say 
of  him.  Every  one  knew  him  personally.  The  men  on 
his  paper  seemed  to  be  very  fond  of  him;  others  held 
various  opinions. 

In  1894  Mr.  Daniels  came  from  Washington,  D.  C, 
where  he  had  been  chief  clerk  in  the  Department  of  the 
Interior,  when  Hoke  Smith  was  Secretary,  and  acquired 
the  newspaper  of  which  he  has  since  been  proprietor. 
In  its  first  years  under  Mr.  Daniels,  the  paper  is  said 
to  have  gone  through  severe  financial  struggles,  and 
there  is  an  amusing  story  current,  about  the  way  the 
payroll  was  met  upon  one  occasion.     According  to  this 

277 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

tale,  the  business  manager  of  the  paper  came  to  ]Mr. 
Daniels,  one  day,  and  informed  him  that  he  needed  sixty 
dcjllars  more  to  make  the  payroll,  and  did  n't  know  where 
he  was  going  to  get  it.  The  only  ready  asset  in  sight, 
it  is  related,  was  several  cases  of  a  patent  medicine 
known  as  "]\Irs.  Joe  Persons'  Remedy,"  which  had  been 
taken  by  the  "News  and  Observer"  in  payment  for  ad- 
vertising space.  ]\Ir.  Daniels  had  a  few  dollars,  and  his 
business  manager  had  a  railroad  pass.  With  these  re- 
sources the  latter  went  out  on  the  road  and  sold  the 
patent  medicine  for  enough  to  make  up  the  deficit. 

Until  Mr.  Daniels  was  appointed  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  he  seems  to  have  been  regarded  by  many  citizens 
of  Raleigh,  as  a  good,  earnest,  hard-working  man,  pos- 
sessed of  considerable  personal  magnetism  and  a  good 
political  nose — a  man  who  could  scent  how  the  pack  was 
running,  take  a  short-cut,  and  presently  appear  to  l)e 
leading.  In  other  words  an  opportunist.  Though  he 
has  not  much  education,  and  though  as  a  writer  he  is 
far  from  polished,  it  is  said  that  he  has  written  powerful 
editorials.  "When  his  editorials  have  been  good,"  said 
one  gentleman,  "it  is  because  he  has  been  stirred  up  over 
something,  and  because  he  manages  sometimes  to  get 
into  his  wTiting  the  intensity  of  his  own  personality." 
His  office  used  to  be,  and  still  is,  when  he  is  in  Raleigh, 
a  sort  of  political  headquarters,  and  he  used  to  be  able 
to  write  editorials  while  half  a  dozen  politicians  were 
sitting  around  his  desk,  talking. 

With  his  paper  he  has  done  much  good  in  the  State, 

278 


RALEIGH  AND  JOSEPHUS  DANIELS 

notably  by  fighting  consistently  for  prohibition  and  for 
greater  public  educational  advantages.  The  strong  ed- 
ucational movement  in  North  Carolina  began  with  a 
group  of  men  chief  among  whom  were  the  late  Governor 
Charles  B.  Aycock,  called  "the  educational  governor"; 
Dr.  E.  A.  Alderman,  who,  though  president  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Virginia,  is  a  North  Carolinian  and  was  for- 
merly president  of  the  University  of  that  State;  Dr. 
Charles  D.  AIcKeever  who  committed  the  State  to  the 
principle  of  higher  education  for  women,  and  other  men 
of  similar  high  purpose.  A  gentleman  who  was  far 
from  an  unqualified  admirer  of  Mr.  Daniels,  told  me 
that  without  his  aid  the  great  educational  advance  which 
the  state  has  certainly  made  of  recent  years  could  hardly 
have  been  accomplished,  and  that  the  same  thing  applies 
in  the  case  of  prohibition — which  has  been  adopted  in 
North  Carolina. 

*'What  sort  of  man  is  he?"  I  asked  this  gentleman. 

"He  is  the  old  type  of  Methodist,"  he  said.  "He  is 
the  kind  of  man  who  believes  that  the  whale  swallowed 
Jonah.  He  has  the  same  concept  of  religion  that  he 
had  as  a  child.  I  differ  with  his  policies,  his  politics,  his 
mental  methods,  but  I  don't  think  anybody  here  doubts 
that  he  is  trying,  not  only  to  do  the  moral  thing  himself, 
but  to  force  others  to  adopt,  as  rules  for  public  conduct, 
the  exact  code  in  which  he  personally  believes,  and  which 
he  certainly  follows.  His  mental  processes  are  often 
crude,  yet  he  has  much  native  shrewdness  and  the  abil- 
ity to  grasp  situations  as  they  arise. 

279 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

"He  does  not  come  of  the  aristocratic  class,  which 
probably  accounts  for  his  failure,  when  he  first  became 
secretary,  to  perceive  the  necessity  for  discipline  in  the 
navy,  and  the  benefits  of  naval  tradition. 

''He  was  an  ardent  follower — I  might  say  swallower 
— of  Bryan,  gobbling  whole  all  of  the  "Great  Common- 
er's" vagaries.  It  has  been  said,  more  or  less  humor- 
ously, but  doubtless  with  a  foundation  of  fact,  that  he 
was  "Secretary  of  War  in  all  of  Bryan's  cabinets." 
That  shows  where  Bryan  placed  him.  Yet  when  Bryan 
broke  with  Wilson  and  made  his  exit  from  the  Cabinet, 
Daniels  found  it  perfectly  simple,  apparently,  to  drop 
the  Bryanism  which  had,  hitherto,  been  the  very  essence 
of  his  life,  and  become  a  no  less  ardent  supporter  of  the 
President. 

"When  he  was  first  taken  into  the  cabinet  he  evidently 
regarded  the  finer  social  amenities  as  matters  of  no  con- 
sequence, or  even  as  effeminacies.  He  had  but  little 
sense  of  the  fitness  of  things,  and  was,  in  consequence, 
continually  making  faitx  pas;  but  he  is  observant ;  he  has 
learned  a  great  deal  in  the  course  of  his  life  as  a  cabinet 
member,  both  as  to  his  work  in  the  Department,  and  as 
to  the  niceties  of  formal  social  life." 

At  the  time  of  our  visit  to  Raleigh  I  had  not  met  Mr. 
Daniels,  nor  heard  him  speak.  Since  that  time  I  have 
heard  him  several  times  and  have  talked  with  him. 
Also  I  have  talked  of  him  with  a  number  of  men  w^ho 
have  been  thrown  more  or  less  closely  in  contact  with 
him.     As  is  well  known,  naval  officers  detested  him  with 

280 


I ..t\m"Tmfm  lln•T*"^'^ 

Southern  Statesman  who  serves  his  section  best,  ser\^es  the  country-  best." 


RALEIGH  AND  JOSEPHUS  DANIELS 

peculiar  unanimity.     This  was  true  up  to  the  time  of 
our  entering  the  War.     Whether  matters  have  changed 
greatly  since  then  I  am  unable  to  say.     One  officer,  well 
known  in  the  navy,  said  to  me  quite  seriously  that  he 
believed  the  navy  would  be  better  off  without  its  two 
best  dreadnoughts  if  in  losing  them  it  could  also  lose  Mr. 
Daniels.     Such  sentiments  were  peculiarly  unanimous 
among  officers.     On  the  other  hand,  however,  a  high 
officer,  who  has  been  quite  close  to  the  Secretary,  in- 
forms me  that  it  is  indeed  true  that  he  has  improved  as 
experience  has  come  to  him.     This  officer  stated  that 
when  Mr.  Daniels  first  took  office  he  seemed  to  be  defi- 
nitely antagonistic  to  officers  of  the  navy.     *'He  ap- 
peared to  suspect  them  of  pulling  political  wires  and 
working  in  their  own  interests.     That  was  in  the  days 
when  he  seemed  almost  to  encourage  insubordination 
among  the  enlisted  men,  by  his  attitude  toward  them,  in 
contrast  to  his  attitude  towards  their   superiors.     Of 
course  it  was  demoralizing  to  the  service.     But  there 
has  been  a  marked  change  in  the  Secretary  since  Bryan 
left  the  Cabinet."     From  several  sources  I  have  heard 
the  same  evidence.     I  never  heard  any  one  say  that  Mr. 
Daniels  was  really  an  able  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  but  I 
have  heard  many  say  that  he  improved. 

Personally  he  is  a  very  likable  man.  His  face  is  kind 
and  gentle;  his  features  are  interestingly  irregular  and 
there  are  heavy  wrinkles  about  his  mouth  and  eyes — the 
former  adding  something  to  the  already  humorous 
twinkle  of  the  eyes.     His  voice  has  a  Hmhre  reminding 

281 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

me  of  George  M.  Cohan's  voice,  lie  is  hardly  an  orator 
in  the  sense  that  Bryan  is,  yet  he  is  not  without  sim- 
ple oratorical  tricks — as  for  example  a  tremolo,  as  of 
emotion,  which  I  have  heard  him  use  in  uttering 
such  a  phrase  as  ''the  grea-a-a-af  Daniel  /Fc^-ster !" 
Also,  he  wears  a  low  turnover  collar  and  a  black 
string  tic — a  fact  which  would  not  be  worth  noting  did 
these  not  form  a  part  of  what  amounts  almost  to  a 
uniform  worn  by  politicians  of  more  or  less  the  Bryan 
type.  Almost  invariably  there  seems  to  be  some- 
thing of  the  minister  and  something  of  the  actor  in  such 
men. 

Once  I  asked  one  of  the  famous  Washington  corre- 
spondents what  manner  of  man  Mr.  Daniels  was. 

"He  's  a  man,"  he  said,  "that  you  'd  like  to  go  with  on 
a  hunting  trip  in  his  native  North  Carolina.  He  would 
be  a  good  companion  and  would  have  a  lot  of  funny 
stories.  He  is  full  of  kind  intentions.  Had  you  known 
him  before  the  War,  and  had  he  liked  you,  and  had  you 
wished  to  take  a  ride  upon  a  battleship,  he  would  be  dis- 
posed to  order  up  a  battleship  and  send  3'ou  for  a  ride, 
even  if,  by  doing  so,  he  muddled  up  the  fleet  a  little. 
That  would  be  in  line  with  his  fixing  it  for  moving  pic- 
ture people  to  act  scenes  on  a  battleship's  deck — which 
he  permitted.  He  saw^  no  reason  why  that  was  not 
proper,  and  the  kind  of  people  who  admire  him  most  are 
those  who,  likewise,  sise  no  reason  why  it  was  not  proper. 
The  great  lack  in  his  nature  is  that  of  personal  dignity 
— or  even  the  dignity  which  should  be  his  because  of  his 

282 


RALEIGH  AND  JOSEPHUS  DANIELS 
position.     If   you    are    sitting   beside    him    and    he    is 
amiably  disposed  toward  you,  he  may  throw  his  arm 
over  your  shoulder,  or  massage  your  knee  while  talking 
with  you. 

''But  if  some  friend  of  his  were  to  go  to  him  and  con- 
vince him  that  he  lacked  dignity,  he  is  the  kind  of  man 
who,  in  my  judgment,  would  become  so  much  the  worse. 
That  is,  if  he  attempted  to  attain  dignity  he  would  not 
achieve  it,  but  would  merely  grow  arbitrary.  That,  to 
my  mind,  shows  his  great  ineradicable  weakness,  for  it 
not  only  reveals  him  as  a  man  too  little  for  his  job,  but 
prevents  his  comprehending  the  basic  thing  upon  which 
naval  discipline  is  founded.  Nevertheless,  as  a  man 
you  like  him.  It  is  as  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  and  par- 
ticularly as  a  War  Secretary,  that  you  very  definitely 
don't. 

Some  time  after  our  visit  to  Raleigh  my  companion 
and  I  heard  Secretary  Daniels  speak  in  Charleston.  He 
told  a  funny  story  and  talked  generalities  about  the  navy. 
That  was  before  the  United  States  entered  the  War.  I 
do  not  know  what  he  meant  the  speech  for,  but  what  it 
actually  was,  was  a  speech  against  preparedness.  So 
was  the  speech  made  on  the  same  occasion  by  Lemuel  P. 
Padgett,  chairman  of  the  House  Committee  on  Naval 
Affairs.  It  was  a  disingenuous  speech,  a  speech  to  lull 
the  country  into  confidence,  a  speech  which,  alone,  should 
have  been  sufficient  to  prove  Mr.  Padgett's  unfitness  to 
serve  on  that  committee.  Mr.  Daniels  argued  that 
"Germany's  preparedness  had  not  kept  Germany  out  of 

283 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

war";  that  seemed  enough,  but  there  was  one  thing  he 
said  which  utterly  dumbfounded  me.      It  was  this: 

"The  Southern  stafesniaii  zcho  senses  Jiis  section  best, 
senrs  the  country  best." 

Let  the  reader  reflect  for  a  moment  upon  such  an  ut- 
terance. Carried  a  Httle  farther  what  would  it  mean? 
Would  it  not  be  equally  logical  to  say  that  the  man  who 
serves  himself  best  serves  the  country  best?  It  is  the 
theory  of  narrow  sectionalism,  and  by  implication,  at 
least,  the  theory  of  individualism  as  well.  And  section- 
alism and  individualism  are  two  of  the  great  curses  of 
the  United  States. 

Compare  with  Mr.  Daniels'  words  those  of  John  Hay 
who,  veiling  fine  patriotism  beneath  a  web  of  delicate 
humor,  said: 

"In  my  bewilderment  of  origin  and  experience  I  can 
only  put  on  an  aspect  of  deep  humility  in  any  gathering 
of  favorite  sons,  and  confess  that  I  am  nothing  but  an 
American." 

Or  again,  compare  with  them  the  famous  words  of 
Patrick  Henry: 

'"/  am  not  a  Virginian,  but  an  American." 

Clearly,  one  point  of  view  or  the  other  is  wrong.  Per- 
haps Mr.  Daniels  has  more  light  on  sectional  questions 
than  had  Patrick  Henry  or  John  Hay.  At  all  events, 
the  Charleston  audience  applauded. 

284 


CHAPTER  XXVII 
ITEMS  FROM  "THE  OLD  NORTH  STATE" 

TWO  of  the  most  interesting  things  we  saw  in 
Raleigh  were  the  model  jail  on  the  top  floor  of 
the  new  County  Court  House,  where  a  lot  of  very- 
honest  looking  rustics  were  confined  to  await  trial  for 
making  "blockade"  (otherwise  moonshine)  whisky,  and 
the  North  Carolina  Hall  of  EListory,  which  occupies  a 
floor  in  the  fine  new  State  Administration  Building,  op- 
posite the  Capitol.  At  the  head  of  the  first  stair  landing 
in  the  Administration  Building  is  a  memorial  tablet  to 
William  Sidney  Porter  ("O  Henry"),  who  was  born  in 
Greensboro,  North  Carolina,  with  a  bust  of  the  author, 
in  relief,  by  Lorado  Taft.  Porter,  it  may  be  mentioned, 
was  a  connection  of  Worth  Bagley,  the  young  ensign 
who  was  the  only  American  naval  officer  killed  in  the 
Spanish- American  War.  Bagley  was  a  brother  of  Mrs. 
Josephus  Daniels.  A  monument  to  him  stands  in  the 
park  before  the  Capitol.  Aside  from  Porter,  the  only 
author  well  known  in  our  time  whom  I  heard  mentioned 
in  connection  with  North  Carolina,  was  the  Rev. 
Thomas  Dixon,  whose  name  is  most  familiar,  perhaps, 
in  connection  with  the  moving-picture  called  "The  Birth 
of  a  Nation,"  taken  from  one  of  his  novels.  Mr.  Dixon 
was  born  in  the  town  of  Shelby,  North  Carolina,  and 

285 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

was  for  some  years  pastor  of  the  Tabernacle   I>aptist 
Church,  Raleigh. 

The  Ilall  of  History,  containing  a  great  variety  of 
State  reHcs,  is  one  of  the  most  fascinating  museums  I 
ever  visited.  Too  much  praise  cannot  be  given  Colonel 
Fred  A.  Olds  and  Mr.  Marshall  De  Lancey  Haywood, 
of  the  North  Carolina  Historical  Society,  for  making  it 
what  it  is.  As  with  the  Confederate  Museum  in  Rich- 
mond, so,  here,  it  is  impossible  to  give  more  than  a  faint 
idea  of  the  interest  of  the  museum's  contents.  Among 
the  exhibits  of  which  I  made  note,  I  shall,  however,  men- 
tion a  few.  There  was  a  letter  written  from  Paris  in 
the  handwriting  of  John  Paul  Jones,  requesting  a  copy 
of  the  Constitution  of  North  Carolina ;  there  was  the  Ku 
Klux  warning  issued  to  one  Ben  Turner  of  Northamp- 
ton County;  and  there  was  an  old  newspaper  advertise- 
ment signed  by  James  J.  Selby,  a  tailor,  dated  at  Raleigh, 
June  24,  1824,  offering  a  reward  of  ten  dollars  for  the 
capture  and  return  of  two  runaways :  ''apprentice  boys, 
legally  bound,  named  William  and  Andrew  Johnson." 
The  last  named  boy  was  the  same  Andrew  Johnson  who 
later  became  a  distinctly  second-rate  President  of  the 
United  States.  Also  there  was  a  peculiarly  tragic  Civil 
War  memento,  consisting  of  a  note  which  was  found 
clasped  in  the  dead  hand  of  Colonel  Isaac  Avery,  of  the 
6th  North  Carolina  Regiment,  who  was  killed  while 
commanding  a  brigade  on  the  second  day  at  Gettysburg. 

Tell  my  father  I  died  with  my  face  to  the  enemy. 

286  ' 


ITEMS  FROM  "THE  OLD  NORTH  STATE" 

These  words  were  written  by  the  fallen  officer  with  his 
left  hand,  his  right  arm  having-  been  rendered  useless 
by  his  mortal  wound.  For  ink  he  used  his  own  life 
blood. 

Also  in  the  museum  may  be  seen  the  chart-book  of 
Blackbeard,  the  pirate,  who,  one  of  the  curators  of  the 
museum  informed  me,  was  the  same  person  as  Edward 
Teach.  Blackbeard,  who  is  commemorated  in  the  name 
of  Blackbeard's  Island,  off  the  coast  of  South  Georgia, 
met  his  fate  when  he  encountered  a  cruiser  fitted  out  by 
Governor  Spotswood  of  Virginia  and  commanded  by 
Lieutenant  Maynard.  Maynard  found  Blackbeard's 
ship  at  Okracoke  Inlet,  on  the  North  Carolina  coast. 
Before  he  and  his  men  could  board  the  pirate  vessel  the 
pirates  came  and  boarded  them.  Severe  fighting  en- 
sued, but  the  pirates  were  defeated,  Maynard  himself 
killing  Blackbeard  in  single  combat  with  swords.  The 
legend  around  Okrakoke  is  that  Blackbeard's  bad  for- 
tune on  this  occasion  came  to  him  because  of  the  unlucky 
number  of  his  matrimonial  adventures,  the  story  being 
that  he  had  thirteen  wives.  It  is  said  also  that  his  van- 
quishers cut  oft'  his  head  and  hung  it  at  the  yard-arm 
of  their  ship,  throwing  his  body  into  the  sea,  and  that 
as  soon  as  the  body  struck  the  water  the  head  began  to 
call,  "Come  on,  Edward !''  w^hereupon  the  headless  body 
swam  three  times  around  the  ship.  Personally  I  think 
there  may  be  some  slight  doubt  about  the  authenticity 
of  this  part  of  the  story.  For,  while  from  one  point  of 
view  we  might  say  that  to  swim  about  in  such  aimless 

287 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

fashion  would  be  the  very  thing  a  man  without  a  head 
might  do,  yet  from  another  point  of  view  the  question 
arises :  Would  a  man  whose  head  had  just  been  severed 
from  his  body  feel  like  taking  such  a  long  swim  ? 

And  what  a  rich  lot  of  other  historic  treasures ! 

Did  yi)u  know,  for  instance,  that  Flora  Alacdonald, 
the  Scottish  heroine,  who  helped  Prince  Charles  Edward 
to  escape,  dressed  as  a  maidservant,  after  the  Battle  of 
Culloden,  in  1746,  came  to  America  with  her  husband 
and  many  relatives  just  before  the  Revolutionary  War 
and  settled  at  Cross  Creek  (now  Fayetteville),  North 
Carolina?  W'hen  General  Donald  Macdonald  raised 
the  Royal  standard  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  her 
husband  and  many  of  her  kinsmen  joined  him,  and  these 
were  later  captured  at  the  Battle  of  Moore's  Creek 
Bridge,  in  1776,  and  taken  as  prisoners  to  Philadelphia. 
Yes;  and  Flora  Macdonald's  garter-buckles  are  now  in 
the  museum  at  Raleigh. 

A  portrait  of  Captain  James  J.  Waddell,  C.  S.  N.,  who 
was  a  member  of  a  famous  North  Carolina  family,  re- 
calls the  story  of  his  post-bellum  cruise,  in  command  of 
the  Shenandoah,  when,  not  knowing  that  the  War  was 
over,  he  preyed  for  months  on  Federal  commerce  in  the 
South  Seas. 

The  museum  of  course  contains  many  uniforms  worn 
by  distinguished  soldiers  of  the  Confederacy  and  many 
old  flags,  among  them  one  said  to  be  the  original  flag  of 
the  Confederacy.  This  flag  was  designed  by  Orren  R. 
Smith  of  Louisburg,  North  Carolina,  and  was  made  in 

288 


ITEMS  FROM  "THE  OLD  NORTH  STATE" 

that  town.  The  journals  of  the  Confederate  Congress 
show  that  countless  designs  for  a  flag  were  submitted, 
that  the  Committee  on  a  Flag  reported  that  all  designs 
had  been  rejected  and  returned,  the  committee  having 
adopted  one  of  its  own;  nevertheless  Mr.  Smith's  claim 
to  have  designed  the  flag  finally  adopted  is  so  well  sup- 
ported that  the  Confederate  Veterans,  at  their  General 
Reunion  held  in  Richmond  in  191 5,  passed  a  resolution 
endorsing  it. 

Also  in  the  museum  is  the  shot-riddled  smokestack  of 
the  Confederate  ram  Albemarle,  which  was  built  on  the 
farm  of  Peter  E.  Smith,  on  Roanoke  River,  and  is  said 
to  have  been  the  first  vessel  ever  launched  sidewise. 
The  Albemarle,  after  a  glorious  career,  was  sunk  by 
Lieutenant  Cushing,  U.  S.  N.,  in  his  famous  exploit  with 
a  torpedo  carried  on  a  pole  at  the  bow  of  a  launch.  It 
will  be  remembered  that  the  launch  was  sunk  by  the 
shock  and  that  only  Cushing  and  one  member  of  his 
crew  survived,  swimming  away  under  fire. 

North  Carolina  also  claims — and  not  without  some 
justice — that  the  first  English  settlement  on  this  con- 
tinent was  not  that  at  Jamestown,  but  the  one  made  by 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh's  expedition,  under  Amadas  and  Bar- 
lowe,  which  landed  at  Roanoke  Island,  August  4,  1584, 
and  remained  there  for  some  weeks.  The  Jamestown 
colony,  say  the  North  Carolinians,  was  merely  the  first 
to  stick. 

Kitty  Hawk,  North  Carolina,  across  the  sound  from 
Roanoke  Island,  is  the  site  of  the  first  flight  of  a  man 

289 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

in  an  aeroplane,  the  Wright  brothers  having  tried  out 
their  first  crude  plane  there,  among  the  Kill-Devil  sand 
dunes.  A  part  of  the  original  plane  is  preserved  in  the 
museum.  Nor  must  I  leave  the  museum  without  men- 
tioning the  bullet-riddled  hat  of  General  W.  R.  Cox,  and 
his  gray  military  coat,  with  a  blood-stained  gash  in 
front,  where  a  solid  shell  ripped  across.  General  Cox's 
son,  Mr.  Albert  Cox,  was  with  us  in  the  museum  when 
we  stopped  to  look  at  this  grim  souvenir.  'Tt  tore  fa- 
ther open  in  front,"  he  said,  "spoiled  a  coat  which  had 
cost  him  $550,  Confederate,  and  damaged  his  watch- 
chain.  Nevertheless  he  lived  to  take  part  in  the  last 
charge  at  Appomattox,  and  the  watchchain  was  n't  so 
badly  spoiled  but  what,  with  the  addition  of  some  new 
links,  it  could  be  worn."  And  he  showed  us  where  the 
chain,  which  he  himself  was  wearing  at  the  time,  had 
been  repaired. 

I  must  say  something,  also,  of  the  North  Carolina  Col- 
lege of  Agriculture  and  Mechanic  Arts,  an  institution 
doing  splendid  work,  and  doing  it  efiiciently,  both  in  its 
own  buildings  and  through  extension  courses.  Fifty- 
two  per  cent  of  the  students  at  this  college  earn  their 
way  through,  either  wholly  or  in  part.  And  better  yet, 
eighty-three  per  cent  of  the  graduates  stick  to  the  prac- 
tical work  afterwards — an  unusually  high  record. 

The  president  of  the  college,  Dr.  D.  H.  Hill,  is  a  son 
of  the  Confederate  general  of  the  same  name,  who  has 
been  called  ''the  Ironsides  of  the  South." 

There  are  a  number  of  other  important  educational 

290 


ITEMS  FROM  "THE  OLD  NORTH  STATE" 

institutions  in  and  about  Raleigh,  and  there  is  one 
which,  if  not  important,  is  at  all  events,  a  curio.  This  is 
"Latta  University,"  consisting  of  a  few  flimsy  shacks 
in  the  negro  village  of  Oberlin,  on  the  outskirts  of 
Raleigh. 

''Professor"  Latta  Is  one  of  the  rare  negroes  who  com- 
bines the  habit  with  white  folks  of  the  old  fashioned 
southern  darky,  and  the  astuteness  of  the  "new  issue" 
in  high  finance.  Years  ago  he  conceived  the  idea  of 
establishing  a  negro  school  near  Raleigh,  to  which  he 
gave  the  above  mentioned  name.  He  had  no  funds,  no 
credit  and  little  or  no  education.  Nevertheless  he  had 
ideas,  the  central  one  of  which  was  that  New  England 
was  the  land  of  plenty.  With  the  "university"  in  his 
head,  and  with  a  miscellaneous  collection  of  photographs, 
he  managed  to  make  a  tour  of  northern  cities,  and  came 
back  with  his  pockets  lined.  As  a  result  he  procured  a 
little  land,  put  up  frame  buildings,  gathered  a  few  youths 
about  him,  and  was  fully  launched  on  his  career  as  a 
university  president. 

So  long  as  the  money  held  out,  Latta  was  content  to 
drift  along  with  his  school.  When  he  came  to  the  bot- 
tom of  the  bag  he  invested  the  last  of  his  savings  in  an- 
other ticket  north  and,  armed  with  his  title  of  "presi- 
dent," made  addresses  to  northern  audiences  and  re- 
plenished his  finances  with  their  contributions. 

Finally,  as  the  great  act  of  his  career,  Latta  managed 
to  get  passage  to  Europe  and  was  gone  for  several 
months.     When  he  came  back  he  had  added  a  manu- 

291 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

script  to  his  possessions :  ''The  History  of  My  Life  and 
Work,"  which  he  pubHshed,  and  which  is  one  of  the  most 
curious  vokimes  I  have  ever  seen. 

It  is  illustrated — largely  with  photographs  of  the 
author.  One  of  the  pictures  is  entitled,  "Rev.  M.  L. 
Latta  w^hen  he  first  commenced  to  build  Latta  Univer- 
sity." This  shows  Latta  with  the  tips  of  his  fingers  rest- 
ing on  a  small  table.  Another  picture  shows  him  posed 
with  one  hand  raised  and  the  other  resting  on  what  is 
unmistakably  the  same  little  table.  The  latter  picture, 
however,  has  the  .caption,  "Rev.  M.  L.  Latta  making  a 
speech  in  Pawtucket,  R.  I.,  at  Y.  M.  C.  A."  Both  i)ic- 
tures  were  all  too  clearly  taken  in  a  photographer's 
studio.  Another  page  shows  us,  *'Rev.  AI.  L.  Latta  and 
three  of  his  Admirable  Presidents."  In  this  case  Latta 
merely  takes  for  himself  the  upper  right-hand  corner, 
the  other  eminent  persons  pictured  being  ex-Presidents 
Roosevelt,  McKinley  and  Cleveland.  The  star  illustra- 
tion, however,  is  a  "made  up"  picture,  in  which  a  photo- 
graph of  Latta,  looking  spick-and-span,  has  been  pasted 
onto  what  is  very  obviously  a  painted  picture  of  a  hall 
full  of  people  in  evening  dress,  all  of  them  gazing  at 
Latta,  who  stands  upon  the  stage,  dignified,  suave,  im- 
pressive, and  all  dressed-up  by  the  brush  of  the  ''re- 
toucher." This  picture  is  called:  "In  the  Auditorium 
at  London,  in  1894."  Similar  artfulness  is  shown  in 
pictures  of  the  "university"  buildings,  where  the  same 
frame  structure,  photographed  from  opposite  ends,  ap- 
pears in  one  case  as,  "Young  Ladies'  Dormitory,"  and 

292 


ITEMS  FRO.M  "THE  OLD  NORTH  STATE" 

in  the  other  as,   "Chapel  and  Young  Men's  Dormi- 
tory." 

In  his  autobiography,  Latta  tells  how,  in  the  course 
of  getting  his  own  schooling,  he  raised  money  by  teach- 
ing a  district  school  during  vacation.     He  says : 

After  paying  my  expenses,  I  had  nearly  a  hundred  dollars  to 
return  to  school  with.  When  I  returned  I  was  able  to  dress  very 
neatly  indeed,  and  the  young  ladies  received  me  very  cordially  on 
the  green  during  social  hour.  Before  I  taught  school  it  was  a 
common  saying  among  the  young  ladies  and  young  men  "Latta"  ; 
but  after  I  returned  with  a  hundred  dollars  it  was  "Mr.  Latta" 
all  over  the  campus.  I  would  hear  the  young  ladies  saying  among 
themselves,  "I  bet  Mr.  Latta  will  not  go  with  you— he  will  cor- 
respond with  me  this  afternoon."  I  paid  no  attention  to  it.  I 
said  to  myself,  "Don't  you  see  what  a  hundred  dollars  will  do?" 

In  another  place  the  Professor  reveals  how  he  came 
to  write  his  book:  "Professor  King,  one  of  the  teach- 
ers at  Latta  University  said  to  me,  Tf  I  had  done  what 
you  have  done  I  would  have  wrote  a  history  of  my  life 
several  years  ago.'  " 

The  best  part  of  the  book,  however,  gives  us  Latta's 
account  of  his  doings  in  London: 

Just  before  I  left  the  city  of  London  I  was  invited  by  a  dis- 
tinguished friend,  a  close  relation  to  Queen  Victoria,  to  make 
a  speech.  He  told  me  there  would  be  a  meeting  in  one  of  the 
large  halls  in  that  city.  I  can't  just  think  of  the  name  of  the 
hall.  He  invited  me  to  be  present.  The  distinguished  friend 
that  I  have  just  mentioned  presided  over  the  meeting.  There  was 
an  immense  audience  present.  If  memory  serves  me  right,  I  was 
the  only  Negro  in  the  hall.  The  gentleman  came  to  me  and 
asked  if  I  would  make  a  speech.     I  told  him  I  had  already  deliv- 

293 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

ered  one  address,  besides  several  sermons  I  had  preached,  and  I 
thought  that  I  would  not  speak  again  during  my  stay.  I  ac- 
cepted the  invitation,  however,  and  spoke. 

The  Professor  then  tells  how  he  was  introduced  as 
one  whose  addresses  were  "among  the  ablest  ever  de- 
livered in  London."  Also  he  gives  /his  speech  in  full. 
Great  events  followed.  His  distinguished  unnamed 
friend,  the  "close  relation  of  the  Queen/'  came  to  him 
soon  after,  he  says,  and  asked  him  if  he  had  "ever  been 
to  the  palace." 

Continues  Latta: 

lie  said  to  me,  "If  you  will  come  over  before  you  leave  tlie 
city,  and  call  to  see  me,  I  will  take  you  to  the  palace  with  me 
and  introduce  you  to  the  Queen."  I  told  him  I  would  do  so, 
that  I  had  heard  a  good  deal  about  the  royal  throne,  and  I  would 
be  very  much  interested  to  see  the  palace.  He  said  he  thought 
I  would,  because  the  government  was  very  different  from  ours. 

I  called  at  his  residence  as  I  had  promised,  and  he  went  with 
me  to  the  palace.  The  Queen  knew  him,  of  course.  He  was  re- 
ceived very  cordially.  Everything  shined  so  much  like  gold  in 
the  palace  that  I  had  to  stop  and  think  where  I  was.  He  intro- 
duced me  to  the  Queen,  and  told  her  I  was  from  North  America. 
He  told  her  that  I  spoke  at  a  meeting  he  presided  over,  and  he 
enjoyed  my  speech  very  much.  He  told  her  we  had  an  immense 
audience,  and  all  the  people  were  well  pleased  with  the  speech. 
The  Queen  said  she  was  more  than  glad  to  meet  me,  and  she 
would  have  liked  very  much  to  have  been  present,  and  heard  the 
speech  that  her  cousin  said  I  made.  .  .  .  She  told  me  she  hoped 
that  would  not  be  the  last  visit  I  would  make  to  their  city.  I 
shook  hands  with  her  and  bade  her  good-bye.  The  distinguished 
friend  carried  me  and  showed  me  the  different  departments  of 
the  palace,  and  I  bade  him  good-bye. 

294 


ITEMS  FROM  "THE  OLD  NORTH  STATE" 

In  Raleigh,  I  think,  they  rather  Uke  Latta.  It  amuses 
them  to  seem  him  go  north  and  get  money,  and  it  is  said 
that  he  appreciates  the  situation  himself.  He  ought  to. 
Not  many  southern  negroes  have  such  comfortable 
homes  as  "Latta  University's"  best  kept-up  building — 
the  residence  of  the  President. 


29s 


CHAPTER  XXVlll 
UNDER  ST.  ]\IICHAEL'S  CHIMES 

And  where   St.    Michael's  chimes 
The  fragrant  hours  exquisitely  tell, 
Making   the   world   one   loveliness, 
like  a  true  poet's  rhymes. 

— Richard  Watson  Gilder. 

IT  has  been  said — by  Mrs.  T.  P.  O'Connor,  1  think — 
that  whereas  twenty-five  letters  of  introduction  for 
New  York  may  produce  one  invitation  to  dinner, 
one  letter  of  introduction  for  Charleston  will  pro- 
duce twenty-five  dinner  invitations.  If  this  be  an 
exaggeration  it  is,  at  least,  exaggeration  in  the  right 
direction ;  that  is,  along  the  lines  of  truth.  For  though 
Charleston's  famed  "exclusiveness"  is  very  real,  making 
letters  of  introduction  very  necessary  to  strangers  de- 
siring to  see  something  of  the  city's  social  life,  such 
letters  produce,  in  Charleston,  as  Mrs.  O'Connor  sug- 
gests, results  definite  and  delightful. 

Immediately  upon  our  arrival,  my  companion  and  I 
sent  out  several  letters  we  had  brought  with  us,  and 
presently  calling  cards  began  to  arrive  for  us  at  the 
hotel.  Also  there  came  courteous  little  notes,  delivered 
in  most  cases  by  hand,  according  to  the  old  Charleston 
custom — a    custom    surviving    pleasantly    from    times 

296 


UNDER  ST.  MICHAEL'S  CHIMES 

when  there  were  no  postal  arrangements,  but  plenty  of 
slaves  to  run  errands.  Even  to  this  day,  I  am  told,  in- 
vitations to  Charleston's  famous  St.  Cecilia  balls  are 
delivered  by  hand. 

One  of  the  notes  we  received  revealed  to  us  a  char- 
acteristic custom  of  the  city.  It  contained  an  invitation 
to  occupy  places  in  the  pew  of  a  distinguished  family,  at 
St.  Michael's  Church,  on  the  approaching  Sunday  morn- 
ing. In  order  to  realize  the  significance  of  such  an 
invitation  one  must  understand  that  St.  Michael's  is 
to  Charleston,  socially,  what  St.  George's,  Hanover 
Square,  is  to  London.  A  beautiful  old  building,  sur- 
rounded by  a  historic  burial  ground  and  surmounted  by 
a  delicate  white  spire  containing  fine  chimes,  it  strongly 
suggests  the  architectural  touch  of  Sir  Christopher 
Wren;  but  it  is  not  by  Wren,  for  he  died  a  number  of 
years  before  1752,  when  the  cornerstone  of  St.  Mi- 
chael's was  laid.  When  the  British  left  Charleston — or 
Charles  Town,  as  the  name  of  the  place  stands  in  the 
early  records — after  occupying  it  during  the  Revolu- 
tionary War,  they  took  with  them,  to  the  horror  of  the 
city,  the  bells  of  St.  Michael's,  and  the  church  books. 
The  silver,  however,  was  saved,  having  been  concealed 
on  a  plantation  some  miles  from  Charleston.  Later  the 
bells  were  returned. 

Pre-Revolutionary  Charleston  was  divided  into  two 
parishes:  St.  Michael's  below  Broad  Street,  and  St. 
Philip's  above.  Under  governmental  regulation  citi- 
zens were  not  allowed  to  hold  pews  in  both  churches 

297 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

unless  they  owned  houses  in  both  parishes.  St.  Mi- 
chael's, being  nearer  the  battery,  in  which  region  are  the 
finest  old  houses,  had,  perhaps,  the  wealthier  congrega- 
tion, but  St.  Philip's  is,  to  my  mind,  the  more  beautiful 
church  of  the  two,  largely  because  of  the  open  space 
before  it,  and  the  graceful  outward  bend  of  Church 
Street  in  deference  to  the  projecting  portico. 

When  the  Civil  War  broke  out  St.  Philip's  bells  were 
melted  and  made  into  cannon,  but  those  of  St.  Michael's 
were  left  in  place  until  cannonballs  from  the  blockading 
fleet  struck  the  church,  when  they  were  taken  down  and 
sent,  together  with  the  silver  plate,  to  Columbia,  South 
Carolina,  for  safe-keeping.  But  Columbia  was,  as  mat- 
ters turned  out,  the  worst  place  to  which  they  could  have 
been  sent.  The  silver  was  looted  by  troops  under  Sher- 
man, and  the  bells  were  destroyed  when  the  city  w^as 
burned.  The  fragments  were,  however,  collected  and 
sent  to  England,  whence  the  bells  originally  came,  and 
there  they  w^ere  recast.  Their  music — perhaps  the  most 
characteristic  of  all  the  city's  characteristic  sounds — has 
been  called  "the  voice  of  Charleston."  Of  the  silver 
only  a  few  fragments  have  been  returned.  One  piece 
was  found  irt  a  pawn  shop  in  New  York,  and  another  in 
a  small  town  in  Ohio.  Mais  que  voulez-vousf  C'est 
la  guerre! 

In  mentioning  Charleston  churches  one  becomes  in- 
volved in  a  large  matter.  In  1801,  when  St.  Mary's,  the 
first  Roman  Catholic  church  in  the  city,  was  erected, 
there    were    already    eighteen    churches    in    existence, 

298 


UNDER  ST.  MICHAEL'S  CHIMES 

among  them  the  present  Huguenot  Church,  at  the  corner 
of  Church  and  Queen  Streets,  which,  though  a  very  old 
building,  is  nevertheless  the  second  Huguenot  Church  to 
occupy  the  same  site,  the  first,  built  in  1687,  having  been 
destroyed  in  the  great  conflagration  of  1796,  which  very 
nearly  destroyed  St.  Philip's,  as  well.  A  number  of 
the  old  Huguenot  families  long  ago  became  Episcopa- 
lians, and  the  descendants  of  many  of  the  early  French 
settlers  of  Charleston,  buried  in  the  Huguenot  church- 
yard, are  now  parishioners  of  St.  Michael's  and  St. 
Philip's.  The  Huguenot  Church  in  Charleston  is  the 
only  church  of  this  denomination  in  America ;  its  liturgy 
is  translated  from  the  French,  and  services  are  held  in 
French  on  the  third  Sunday  of  November,  January  and 
March.  A  Unitarian  Church  was  established  in  1817, 
as  an  offshoot  of  the  Scotch  Presbyterian  Church,  the 
old  White  Meeting  House  of  which  (built  1685,  used  by 
the  British  as  a  granary,  during  the  Revolution,  and 
torn  down  1806)  gave  Meeting  Street  its  name.  Early 
in  the  history  of  the  Unitarian  Church,  the  home  of 
which  was  a  former  Presbyterian  Church  building,  in 
Archdale  Street,  Dr.  Samuel  Oilman,  a  young  minister 
from  Gloucester,  Massachusetts,  became  its  pastor. 
This  was  the  same  Dr.  Oilman  who  wrote  ''Fair  Har- 
vard." 

In  only  one  instance  did  the  letters  of  introduction  we 
sent  out  produce  a  response  of  the  kind  one  would  not 
be  surprised  at  receiving  in  some  rushing  city  of  the 

299 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

North:  a  telephone  call.  A  lady,  not  a  native  Charles- 
tonian,  but  one  who  has  lived  actively  about  the  world, 
rang  us  up,  bade  us  welcome,  and  invited  us  to  dinner. 

But  she  was  a  very  modern  sort  of  lady,  as  witness 
not  only  her  use  of  the  telephone — an  instrument  which 
seems  in  Charleston  almost  an  anachronism ;  as,  for  that 
matter,  the  automobile  does,  too — but  her  dinner  hour, 
which  was  eight  o'clock.  Very  few  Charleston  families 
dine  at  night.  Dinner  invitations  are  usually  for  three, 
or  perhaps  half-past  three  or  four,  in  the  afternoon,  and 
there  is  a  light  supper  in  the  evening.  I  judge  that  this 
custom  holds  also  in  some  other  cities  of  the  region,  for 
I  remember  calling  at  the  office  of  a  large  investment 
company  in  Wilmington,  North  Carolina,  to  find  it 
wearing,  at  three  in  the  afternoon,  the  deserted  look  of 
a  New  York  office  between  twelve  and  one  o'clock. 
Every  one  had  gone  home  to  dinner.  Mr.  W.  D.  How- 
ells,  in  his  charming  essay  on  Charleston,  makes  men- 
tion of  this  matter: 

"The  place,"  he  says,  "has  its  own  laws  and  usages, 
and  does  not  trouble  itself  to  conform  to  those  of  other 
aristocracies.  In  London  the  best  society  dines  at  eight 
o'clock,  and  in  Madrid  at  nine,  but  in  Charleston  it  dines 
at  four.  ...  It  makes  morning  calls  as  well  as  after- 
noon calls,  but  as  the  summer  approaches  the  midday 
heat  must  invite  rather  to  the  airy  leisure  of  the  veran- 
das, and  the  cool  quiescence  of  interiors  darkened 
against  the  fly  in  the  morning  and  the  mosquito  at  night- 
fall." 

300 


t 


^^.m 


lu 


,'■  'aj}ft  ^jj-.s  . 


St.  Philip's  is  thf  more  beautiful  for  the 


licfi.rc  it,  ami  l!ic  .L;raceful 


outward  bend  of  Church  Street  in  deference  to  the  projecting  portico 


UNDER  ST.  MICHAEL'S  CHIMES 

The  household  fly  is  a  year-round  resident  of  Charles- 
ton, by  grace  of  a  climate  which  permits — barely  per- 
mits, at  its  coldest — the  use  of  the  open  surrey  as  a 
public  vehicle  in  all  seasons.  Sometimes,  during  a  win- 
ter cold-snap,  when  a  ride  in  a  surrey  is  not  a  pleasant 
thing  to  contemplate,  when  residents  of  old  mansions 
have  shut  themselves  into  a  room  or  two  heated  by  grate 
fires,  then  the  fly  seems  to  have  disappeared,  but  let  the 
cold  abate  a  little  and  out  he  comes  again  like  some 
rogue  who,  after  brief  and  spurious  penance,  resumes 
the  evil  of  his  ways. 

The  stranger  going  to  a  humble  Charleston  house  will 
find  on  the  gate  a  coiled  spring  at  the  end  of  which  hangs 
a  bell.  By  touching  the  spring  and  causing  the  bell 
to  jingle  he  makes  his  presence  known.  The  larger 
houses  have  upon  their  gates  bell-pulls  or  buttons  which 
cause  bells  to  ring  within.  This  is  true  of  all  houses 
which  have  front  gardens.  The  garden  gate  consti- 
tutes, by  custom,  a  barrier  comparable  in  a  degree  with 
the  front  door  of  a  Northern  house;  a  usage  arising, 
doubtless,  out  of  the  fact  that  almost  all  important 
Charleston  houses  have  not  only  gardens,  but  first  and 
second  story  galleries,  and  that  in  hot  weather  these 
galleries  become,  as  it  were,  exterior  rooms,  in  which  no 
small  part  of  the  family  life  goes  on.  Many  Charleston 
houses  have  their  gardens  to  the  rear,  and  themselves 
abut  upon  the  sidewalk.  Calling  at  such  houses,  you 
ring  at  what  seems  to  be  an  ordinary  front  door,  but 
when  the  door  is  opened  you  find  yourself  entering  not 

301 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

upon  a  hall,  but  upon  an  exterior  gallery  running  to  the 
full  depth  uf  the  house,  down  whieh  you  walk  to  the 
actual  house  door.  In  still  other  houses — and  this  is 
true  of  some  of  the  most  notable  mansions  of  the  city, 
including  the  Pringle,  linger,  and  Rhett  houses — ad- 
mittance is  by  a  street  door  of  the  normal  sort,  opening 
upon  a  hall,  and  the  galleries  and  gardens  are  at  the  side 
or  back,  the  position  of  the  galleries  in  relation  to  the 
house  depending  upon  what  point  of  the  compass  the 
house  faces,  the  desirable  thing  being  to  get  the  breezes 
which  are  prevalently  from  the  southwest  and  the  west- 
ward. 

Charleston  is  very  definitely  two  things:  It  is  old, 
and  it  is  a  city. 

There  is  the  story  of  a  young  lady  who  asked  a 
stranger  if  he  did  not  consider  it  a  unique  tow-n. 

He  agreed  that  it  w^as,  and  inquired  whether  she  knew 
the  derivation  of  the  word  ''unique." 

When  she  replied  negatively  he  informed  her  thai  the 
word  came  from  the  Latin  imus,  meaning  "one,"  and 
equiis,  meaning  "a  horse" ;  otherwise  "a  one-horse  town." 

This  tale,  however,  is  a  libel,  for  despite  the  general 
superstition  of  chambers  of  commerce  to  the  contrary, 
the  estate  of  cityhood  is  not  necessarily  a  matter  of 
population  nor  yet  of  commerce.  That  is  one  of  the 
things  which,  if  we  were  unaware  of  it  before,  we  may 
learn  from  Charleston.  Charleston  is  not  great  in 
population ;  it  is  not  very  great,  as  seaports  go,  in  trade. 

302 


UNDER  ST.  MICHAEL'S  CHIMES 

Were  cities  able  to  talk  with  one  another  as  men  can, 
and  as  foolishly  as  men  often  do,  I  have  no  doubt  that 
many  a  hustling  middle-western  city  would  patronize 
Charleston,  precisely  as  a  parvenue  might  patronize  a 
professor  of  astronomy;  nevertheless,  Charleston  has  a 
stronger,  deeper-rooted  city  entity  than  all  the  cities  of 
the  Middle  West  rolled  into  one.  This  is  no  exaggera- 
tion. Where  modern  American  cities  strive  to  be  like 
one  another,  Charleston  strives  to  be  like  nothing  what- 
soever. She  does  not  have  to  strive  to  be  something. 
She  is  something.  She  understands  what  most  other 
American  cities  do  not  understand,  and  what,  in  view  of 
our  almost  unrestricted  immigration  laws,  it  seems  the 
National  Government  cannot  be  made  to  understand: 
namely,  that  mere  numbers  do  not  count  for  everything; 
that  there  is  the  matter  of  quality  of  population  to 
be  considered.  Therefore,  though  Charleston's  white 
population  is  no  greater  than  that  of  many  a  place  which 
would  own  itself  frankly  a  small  town,  Charleston 
knows  that  by  reason  of  the  character  of  its  population 
it  is  a  great  city.  And  that  is  precisely  the  case. 
Charleston  people  are  city  people  par  excellence.  They 
have  the  virtues  of  city  people,  the  vices  of  city  people, 
and  the  civilization  and  sophistication  of  those  who  re- 
side in  the  most  aristocratic  capitals.  For  that  is  an- 
other thing  that  Charleston  is;  it  is  unqualifiedly  tht 
aristocratic  capital  of  the  United  States ;  the  last  strong- 
hold  of  a  unified  American  upper  class ;  the  last  remain- 
ing American   city   in  which   Madeira  and   Port   and 

303 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

noblesse  oblige  are  fully  and  widely  understood,  and  are 
employed  according  to  the  best  traditions. 

I  have  been  told  of  a  lady  who  remarked  that  Charles- 
ton was  "the  biggest  little  place"  she  ever  saw.  I  say 
the  same.  The  littleness  of  the  place,  it  is  sometimes 
pointed  out,  is  expressed  by  the  "vast  cousinship"  which 
constitutes  Charleston  society,  but  it  is  to  my  mind  ex- 
pressed much  better  in  the  way  bicyclists  leave  their 
machines  leaning  against  the  curb  at  the  busiest  parts  of 
main  shopping  streets.  Its  bigness,  upon  the  other 
hand,  is  expressed  by  the  homes  from  which  some  of 
those  bicyclists  come,  by  the  cultivation  which  exists  in 
those  homes,  and  has  existed  there  for  generations,  by 
the  amenities  of  life  as  they  are  comprehended  and  ob- 
served, by  the  wealth  of  the  city's  tradition  and  the 
richness  of  its  background.  Nor  is  that  background  a 
mere  arras  of  recollection.  It  exists  everywhere  in  the 
wood  and  brick  and  stone  of  ancient  and  beautiful  build- 
ings, in  iron  grilles  and  balconies  absolutely  unrivaled 
in  any  other  American  city,  and  equaled  only  in  Euro- 
pean cities  most  famous  for  their  artistry  in  wrought 
iron.  It  exists  also  in  venerable  institutions — the  first 
orphanage  established  in  the  United  States ;  the  William 
Enston  Home;  the  Public  Library,  one  of  the  first  and 
now  one  of  the  best  libraries  in  the  country;  the  art 
museum,  the  St.  Cecilia  Society,  and  various  old  clubs. 
More  intimately  it  exists  wnthin  innumerable  old  homes, 
which  are  treasure-houses  of  fine  old  English  and  early 
American    furniture    and    of    portraits — portraits    by 

304 


'/^**^'^""*"^ 


UNDER  ST.  MICHAEL'S  CHIMES 

Sir  Joshua,  by  Stuart,  Copley,  Trumbull,  and  most  of 
the  other  portrait  painters  who  painted  from  the  time 
the  Colonies  began  to  become  civilized  to  the  time  of  the 
Civil  War — among  them  S.  F.  B.  Morse,  who,  I  believe 
it  is  not  generally  known,  made  a  considerable  reputa- 
tion as  a  portrait  painter,  in  Charleston,  before  he  made 
himself  a  world  figure  by  inventing  the  telegraph. 

Even  without  seeing  these  private  treasures  the  vis- 
itor to  Charleston  will  see  enough  to  convince  him  that 
Charleston  is  indeed  '^unique" — though  not  in  the  sense 
implied  in  the  story — that  it  is  the  most  intimately  beau- 
tiful city  upon  the  American  continent. 

To  call  Charleston  "unique,"  and  immediately  there- 
after to  liken  it  to  other  places  may  seem  paradoxical. 
These  likenesses  are,  however,  evanescent.  It  is  not 
that  Charleston  is  actually  like  other  places,  but  that 
here  in  a  church  building,  there  in  an  old  tile  roof, 
wrought  iron  gate,  or  narrow  cobbled  street,  the  visitor 
will  find  himself  delicately  reminded  of  Old  World  towns 
and  cities.  Mr.  Howells,  for  example,  foimd  on  the 
East  Battery  a  faint  suggestion  of  Venetian  palaces,  and 
in  the  doorway  and  gates  of  the  Smyth  house,  in  Legare 
Street,  I  was  struck,  also,  with  a  Venetian  suggestion  so 
strange  and  subtle  that  I  could  not  quite  account  for  it. 
At  night  some  of  the  old  narrow  streets,  between  Meet- 
ing Street  and  Bay,  made  me  think  of  streets  in  the  old 
part  of  Paris,  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Seine;  or  again  I 
would  stop  before  an  ancient  brick  house  which  was 
Flemish,  or  which — in  the  case  of  houses  diagonally  op- 

305 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

posite  St.  Philip's  Church — exampled  the  rude  architec- 
ture of  an  old  Erench  village,  stucco  walls  colored  and 
chipped,  red  tile  roof  and  all.  The  busy  part  of  King 
Street,  on  a  Saturday  night  when  the  fleet  was  in,  made 
me  think  of  Havana,  and  the  bluejackets  seemed  to  me, 
for  the  moment,  to  be  American  sailors  in  a  foreign 
port;  and  once,  on  the  same  evening's  walk,  when  I 
chanced  to  look  to  the  westward  across  Marion  Square, 
I  found  myself  transported  to  the  central  place  of  a  Bel- 
gian city,  with  a  slope-shouldered  church  across  the  way 
masquerading  as  a  hotel  de  ville,  and  the  sidewalk  lights 
at  either  side  figuring  in  my  imagination  as  those  of 
pleasant  terrace  cafes.  So  it  was  always.  The  very 
hotel  in  which  we  stayed — the  Charleston — is  like  no 
other  hotel  in  the  United  States,  though  it  has  about  it 
something  which  caused  me  to  think  of  the  old  Southern, 
in  St.  Louis.  Still,  it  is  not  like  the  Southern.  It  is 
more  like  some  old  hotel  in  a  provincial  city  of  Erance — 
large  and  white,  with  a  pleasing  unevenness  of  floor, 
and,  best  of  all,  a  great  inner  court  which,  in  provincial 
France,  might  be  a  remise,  but  is  here  a  garden.  If  I 
mistake  not,  carriages  and  coaches  did  in  earlier  times 
drive  through  the  arched  entrance,  now  the  main  door- 
way, and  into  this  courtyard,  where  passengers  alighted 
and  baggage  was  taken  down.  The  Planter's  Hotel, 
now  a  ruin,  opposite  the  Huguenot  Church,  antedates  all 
others  in  the  city,  and  used  to  be  the  fashional)le  gather- 
ing place  for  wealthy  Carolinians  and  their  families  who 
came  to  Charleston  annually  for  the  racing  season. 

306 


UNDER  ST.  MICHAEL'S  CHIMES 

The  fact  that  Charleston  has  a  rather  important  art 
museum  and  that  its  Hbrary  is  one  of  the  four  oldest 
town  libraries  in  the  country,  no  less  than  the  fact  that 
the  city  was,  in  its  day,  a  great  racing  center,  contribute 
to  an  understanding  of  the  spirit  of  the  place.  The 
present  Charleston  Library  is  not  the  first  public  library 
started  in  the  city.  Not  by  any  means!  For  it  was 
founded  as  late  as  1748,  and  the  original  public  library 
of  Charleston  was  the  first  one  of  the  kind  in  the  coun- 
try, having  been  started  about  the  beginning  of  the  i8th 
century.  Old  records  of  this  library  still  exist,  showing 
that  citizens  voted  so  many  skins  to  its  support.  Prob- 
ably the  most  valuable  possession  of  the  present  library 
are  its  files  of  Charleston  newspapers,  dating  from  1732 
to  the  present  time,  including  three  files  covering  the 
War  of  1812,  and  two  covering  the  Civil  War.  These 
files  are  consulted  by  persons  from  all  over  the  United 
States,  for  historical  material.  The  library  has  recently 
moved  into  a  good  modern  building.  In  the  old  build- 
ing there  was  a  separate  entrance  at  the  back  for  ladies, 
and  it  is  only  lately  that  ladies  have  been  allowed  full 
membership  in  the  Library  Society,  and  have  entered  by 
the  front  door.  The  former  custom,  I  suppose,  repre- 
sented certain  old-school  sentiments  as  to  "woman's 
place"  such  as  I  find  expressed  in  "Reminiscences  of 
Charleston,"  by  Charles  Eraser,  published  in  1854.  De- 
clares Mr.  Eraser: 

The  ambition  for  literary  distinction  is  now  very  prevalent  with 
the  sex.     But  without  any  disposition  to  undervalue  their  claims, 

2,07 


AMERICAN  AD\T.XTURES 

whenever  I  hear  of  a  female  traveler  clambering  the  Alps,  or  de- 
scribing the  classic  grounds  of  Greece  and  Italy,  publishing  her 
musings  in  the  holy  land,  or  revealing  the  mysteries  of  the 
harem,  I  cannot  but  think  that  for  every  success  obtained  some 
appropriate  duty  has  been  neglected. 

I  except  the  poetess,  for  hers  are  the  effusions  of  the  heart  and 
the  imagination,  prompted  by  nature  and  uttered  because  they  are 
irrepressible.  Many  females  travel  for  the  purpose  of  writing 
and  publishing  books — whilst  Mrs.  Heman's,  Mrs.  Osgood's,  and 
Mrs.  Sigourney's  volumes  may  be  regarded  as  grateful  offerings 
to  the  muse  in  return  for  her  inspiration. 

It  is  hard  not  to  be  irritated,  even  now,  with  the  man 
who  wrote  that,  especially  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the 
two  most  interesting  books  to  come  out  of  the  Carolinas 
of  recent  years  are  both  by  women:  one  of  them  being 
"Charleston — the  Place  and  the  People,"  by  Mrs.  St. 
Julien  Ravenel,  a  volume  any  chapter  of  which  is  worth 
the  whole  of  Mr.  Eraser's  "Reminiscences,"  and  the 
other  "A  Woman  Rice-Planter,"  by  "Patience  Penning- 
ton," otherwise  Mrs.  John  Julius  Pringle  (nee  Alston), 
who  lives  on  her  plantation  near  Georgetown,  South 
Carolina. 

The  Carolina  Jockey  Club  subscribed  regularly  to  the 
support  of  the  library,  and  now  that  that  club  is  no  more, 
its  chief  memorial  may  be  said  to  rest  there.  This  club 
was  probably  the  first  racing  club  in  the  country,  and  it 
is  interesting  to  note  that  the  old  cement  pillars  from 
the  Washington  Race  Course  at  Charleston  were  taken, 
when  that  course  was  abandoned,  and  set  up  at  the  Bel- 
mont Park  course,  near  New  York. 

308 


UNDER  ST.  MICHAEL'S  CHIMES 

The  turf  history  of  CaroUna  began  (according  to  the 
''South  CaroUna  Gazette,"  dated  February  i,  1734)  in 
that  same  year,  on  the  first  Tuesday  in  February.     One 
of  the  prizes  was  a  saddle  and  bridle  valued  at  £20. 
The  riders  were  white  men  and  the  course  was  a  green 
at  Charleston  Neck,  near  where  the  lower  depot  of  the 
South  Carolina  Railroad  now  stands.     In  a  "History  of 
the  Turf   in  South   Carolina,"  which   I   found  in  the 
library,   I  learned  that  Mr.  Daniel  Ravenel  bred  fine 
horses  on  his  plantation,  Wantoot,  in  St.  John's  Parish, 
as  early  as  1761,  that  Mr.  Frank  Huger  had  imported 
an  Arabian  horse,  and  that  many  other  gentlemen  were 
importing  British  running  horses,  and  were  engaged  in 
breeding.     The  book  refers  to  the  old  York  Course,  later 
called  the  New  Market  Course.     A  long  search  did  not, 
however,  enable  me  to  establish  the  date  on  which  the 
Jockey  Club  was  founded.     It  was  clearly  a  going  insti- 
tution in  1792,  for  under  date  of  Wednesday,  February 
15,  in  that  year,  I  found  the  record  of  a  race  for  the 
Jockey  Club  Purse— "four  mile-heats— weight  for  age 
—won  by  Mr.  Lynch's  Foxhunter,  after  a  well  contested 
race  of  four  heats,  beating  Mr.  Sumter's  Ugly,  who  won 
the  first  heat;  Col.  Washington's  Rosetta,  who  won  the 
second  heat;  Capt.  Alston's  Betsy  Baker,"  etc.,  etc. 

The  Civil  War  practically  ended  the  Jockey  Club, 
though  a  feeble  efifort  was,  for  a  time,  made  to  carry  it 
on.  In  1900  the  club  properties  and  the  funds  remain- 
ing in  the  club  treasury  were  transferred  as  an  endow- 
ment to  the  Charleston  Library  Society.     The  proceeds 

309 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

from  this  enduwnicnt  add  to  llic  library's  income  by 
about  two  thousand  dollars  annually.  Other  items  of 
interest  in  connection  with  the  Carolina  Jockey  Club  are 
that  Episcopal  Church  conventions  used  to  be  held  in 
Charleston  during  the  racing  season,  so  that  the  attend- 
ing parsons  might  take  in  the  races ;  that  the  Jockey  Club 
Ball  used  to  be  the  great  ball  of  the  Charleston  season, 
as  the  second  St.  Cecilia  Ball  became  later  and  now  is; 
that  the  Charleston  Club,  a  most  delightful  club,  founded 
in  1852,  was  an  outgrowth  of  the  Jockey  Club;  and  that 
the  Jockey  Club's  old  Sherries,  Ports  and  Madeiras  went 
to  New  York  w'here  they  were  purchased  by  Delmonico 
— among  them  a  Calderon  de  la  Barca  Madeira  of  1848, 
and  a  Peter  Domecq  Sherry  of  181 8. 

Mr.  S.  A.  Nies,  one  of  the  old  employees  of  Del- 
monico's,  tells  me  that  the  Calderon  de  la  Barca  of  the 
above  mentioned  year  is  all  gone,  but  that  Delmonico's 
still  has  a  few  bottles  of  the  same  wine  of  the  vintage 
of  1851. 

''This  wine,"  Mr.  Nies  said,  ''is  listed  on  our  wine 
card  at  $6.00  per  bottle.  It  is  not  the  best  Madeira  that 
we  have,  although  it  is  a  very  fine  one.  Recently  we 
served  a  bottle  of  Thompson's  Auction  Madeira,  of 
which  the  year  is  not  recognizable  on  the  label,  but  which 
to  my  knowledge  w^as  an  old  wine  forty  years  ago. 
This  wine  brought  $25.00  a  bottle  and  was  worth  it. 

"The  Peter  Domecq  Sherry  of  1818  does  not  figure 
on  our  wine  list  as  w^e  have  but  a  few  bottles  left.  It 
is  $20.00  a  bottle. 

310 


UNDER  ST.  MICHAEL'S  CHIMES 

'The  prices  brought  to-day  by  old  Madeiras  and  Sher- 
ries do  not  represent  their  real  values.  One  has  but  to 
look  at  the  compound  interest  of  savings  banks  to  realize 
that  these  wines  should  be  selling  at  four  times  the  price 
they  are;  but  unfortunately,  since  the  advent  of  Scotch 
whisky  in  the  American  market,  the  American  palate 
seems  to  have  deteriorated,  and  if  the  wines  were  listed 
at  the  price  they  ought  to  bring,  we  could  not  sell  them. 
As  it  is,  the  demand  for  the  very  rare  old  wines  is  irregu- 
lar and  infrequent.  We  keep  them  principally  to  pre- 
serve our  reputation;  not  for  the  money  there  is  in  it." 


311 


CllAPTKR  XXIX 
HISTORY  AND  ARISTOCRACY 

The  cool  shade  of  aristocracy  .  .  . 

— Sir  W.  F.  P.  Napier. 

JUST  now,  when  wc  arc  being  unpleasantly  awak- 
ened to  the  fact  that  our  vaunted  American  melt- 
ing-pot has  not  been  doing  its  work;  when  some 
of  us  are  perhaps  wondering  whether  the  quality  of 
metal  produced  by  the  crucible  will  ever  be  of  the  best ; 
it  is  comforting  to  reflect  that  a  city  whose  history,  tra- 
ditions and  great  names  are  so  completely  involved  with 
Americanism  in  its  highest  forms,  a  city  we  think  of  as 
ultra-American,  is  peculiarly  a  melting-pot  product. 

The  original  Charleston  colonists  were  English  and 
Irish,  sent  out  under  Colonel  Sayle,  in  i66(j,  by  the 
Lords  Proprietors,  to  whom  Charles  II  had  granted  a 
tract  of  land  in  the  New  World,  embracing  the  present 
States  of  Georgia  and  North  and  South  Carolina. 
These  colonists  touched  at  Port  Royal — where  the 
Marine  Barracks  now  are  (and  ought  not  to  be) — but 
settled  on  the  west  side  of  the  Ashley  River,  across  from 
where  Charleston  stands.  It  was  not  until  1680  that 
they  transferred  their  settlement  to  the  present  site 
of  the  city,  naming  the  place  Charles  Town  in  honor 

312 


HISTORY  AND  ARISTOCRACY 

of  the  King.  In  1671  the  colony  contained  263  men 
able  to  bear  arms,  69  women  and  59  children.  In  1674, 
when  New  York  was  taken  by  the  English  from  the 
Dutch,  a  number  of  the  latter  moved  down  to  the  Caro- 
lina colony.  French  Protestants  had,  at  that  time, 
already  begun  to  arrive,  and  more  came  after  the  rev- 
ocation of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  in  1685.  I^  16S0  Ger- 
mans came.  By  1684  there  were  four  Huguenot  settle- 
ments in  Carolina.  In  1696  a  Quaker  was  governor 
for  a  short  time,  and  in  the  same  year  a  body  of  New 
Englanders  arrived  from  Dorchester,  Massachusetts, 
establishing  a  town  which  they  called  Dorchester,  near 
the  present  town  of  Summerville,  a  few  miles  from 
Charleston.  At  that  time  a  number  of  Scottish  immi- 
grants had  already  arrived,  though  more  came  in  171 5 
and  1745,  after  the  defeat  of  the  Highlanders.  From 
1730  to  1750  new  colonists  came  from  Switzerland,  Hol- 
land and  Germany.  As  early  as  1740  there  were 
several  Jewish  families  in  Charleston,  and  some  of 
the  oldest  and  most  respected  Jewish  families  in  the 
United  States  still  reside  there.  Also,  when  the  English 
drove  the  Acadians  from  Canada  in  1755,  twelve  hun- 
dred of  them  immigrated  to  Carolina.  By  1790,  then, 
the  city  had  a  population  of  a  little  more  than  15,000, 
which  was  about  half  the  number  of  inhabitants  then 
contained  in  the  city  of  New  York.  In  the  case  of 
Charleston,  however,  more  than  one  half  her  people,  at 
that  time,  were  negroes,  slavery  having  been  introduced 
by  Sir  John  Yeamans,  an  early  British  governor.     By 

313 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

1850  the  city  had  about  20,000  white  citizens  and  23,000 
blacks,  and  by  1880  some  7,500  more,  of  which  additional 
number  two  thirds  were  negroes.  The  present  popula- 
tion is  estimated  at  65,000,  which  makes  Charleston  a 
place  of  about  the  size  of  Rockford,  Illinois,  Sioux  City, 
Iowa,  or  Covington,  Kentucky;  but  as,  in  the  case  of 
Charleston,  more  than  half  this  number  is  colored, 
Charleston  is,  if  the  white  population  only  is  considered, 
a  place  of  approximately  30,000  inhabitants,  or,  roughly 
speaking,  about  the  size  of  Poughkeepsie,  N.  Y.,  or  Colo- 
rado Springs,  Colorado. 

In  area,  also,  Charleston  is  small,  covering  less  than 
four  square  miles.  This  is  due  to  the  position  of  the 
city  on  a  peninsula  formed  by  the  convergence  and  con- 
fluence of  the  Ashley  and  Cooper  Rivers,  which  meet  at 
Charleston's  beautiful  Battery  precisely  as  the  Hudson 
River  and  the  East  River  meet  at  the  Battery  in  New 
York.  The  shape  of  Charleston,  indeed,  greatly  resem- 
bles that  of  Manhattan  Island,  and  though  her  harbor 
and  her  rivers  are  neither  so  large  nor  so  deep  as  those 
of  the  port  of  New  York,  they  are  altogether  adequate 
to  a  considerable  maritime  activity. 

The  Charleston  Chamber  of  Commerce  (which,  like 
everything  else  in  Charleston  dates  from  long  ago,  hav- 
ing been  founded  in  1748)  quotes  President  Taft  as 
calling  this  port  the  most  convenient  one  to  Panama — 
a  statement  which  the  New  Orleans  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce is  in  position  to  dispute.     The  fact  remains,  how- 

314 


HISTORY  AND  ARISTOCRACY 

ever,  that  Charleston's  position  on  the  map  justifies  the 
Chamber  of  Commerce's  alliterative  designation  of  the 
place  as  "The  Plumb-line  Port  to  Panama."  This  is  so 
true  that  if  Charleston  should  one  day  be  shaken  loose 
from  its  moorings  by  an  earthquake — something  not  un- 
known there — and  should  fall  due  south  upon  the  map, 
it  would  choke  up  the  mouth  of  the  Canal,  were  not 
Cuba  interposed,  to  catch  the  debris. 

Before  the  Civil  War,  Charleston  was  the  greatest  cot- 
ton shipping  port  of  the  country,  and  it  still  handles 
large  amounts  of  cotton  and  rice.  Until  a  few  years  ago 
South  Carolina  was  the  chief  rice  producing  State  in 
the  Union,  and  history  records  that  the  first  rice  planted 
in  the  Carolinas,  if  not  in  the  country,  was  secured  and 
sown  by  an  early  governor  of  Carolina,  Thomas  Smith, 
who  died  in  1694.  It  may  be  noted  in  passing  that  this 
Thomas  Smith  bore  the  title  ''Landgrave,"  the  Lords 
Proprietors,  in  their  plan  of  government  for  the  colony 
— which,  by  the  way,  was  drawn  up  by  the  philosopher 
Locke — having  provided  for  a  colonial  nobility  with 
titles.  The  titles  "Baron"  and  "Landgrave"  were  he- 
reditary in  several  Charleston  families,  and  constitute, 
so  far  as  I  know,  the  only  purely  American  titles  of 
nobility  that  ever  existed.  Descendants  of  the  old 
Landgraves  still  reside  in  Charleston,  and  in  at  least  one 
instance  continue  to  use  the  word  "Landgrave"  in  con- 
nection with  the  family  name. 

The  prosperity  of  Charleston  since  the  Civil  War  has 

315 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

depended  more,  perhaps,  than  on  any  other  single  prod- 
uct, upon  the  trade  in  phosphate,  large  deposits  of  which 
underlie  this  region. 

The  real  wonder  of  Charleston,  the  importance  of  the 
place  among  American  cities,  cannot,  however,  be  said 
to  have  resulted  primarily  from  commerce  (though  her 
commerce  is  growing),  or  from  greatness  of  population 
(though  Charleston  is  the  metropolis  of  the  Carolinas), 
but  is  involved  with  matters  of  history,  tradition  and 
beauty.  The  mantle  of  greatness  was  assumed  by  this 
city  in  colonial  times,  and  has  never  been  laid  aside. 
Among  the  most  distinguished  early  Americans  were 
many  Charlestonians,  and  in  not  a  few  instances  the  old 
blood  still  endures  there,  and  even  the  old  names :  such 
names  as  Washington,  Pinckney,  Bull,  Pringle,  Rut- 
ledge,  Middleton,  Drayton,  Alston,  Huger,  Agassi z, 
Ravenel,  Izard,  Gadsden,  Rhett,  Calhoun,  Read,  De 
Saussure,  Lamar  and  Brawley,  to  mention  but  a  few. 

Charleston's  early  history  is  rich  in  pirate  stories  of 
the  most  thrilling  moving-picture  variety.  Blackbeard, 
Stede  Bonnet  and  other  disciples  of  the  Jolly  Roger 
preyed  upon  Charleston  shipping.  Bonnet  once  held  a 
Mr.  Samuel  Wragg  of  Charleston  prisoner  aboard  his 
ship  threatening  to  send  his  head  to  the  city  unless  the 
unfortunate  man  should  be  ransomed — the  demand  be- 
ing for  medicines  of  various  kinds.  Colonel  Rhett,  of 
Charleston,  captured  Bonnet  and  his  ship  after  a  savage 
fight,  but  Bonnet  soon  after  escaped  from  the  city  in 

316 


In  the  doorway  and  gates  of  the  Smyth  house,  in  Legare  Street,  I  was  struck 
with  a  Venetian  suggestion 


HISTORY  AND  ARISTOCRACY 

woman's  clothing.  Still  later  he  was  retaken,  hanged, 
as  he  deserved  to  be,  and  buried  along  with  forty  of  his 
band  at  a  point  now  covered  by  the  Battery  Garden,  that 
exquisite  little  park  at  the  tip  of  the  city,  which  is  the 
favorite  promenade  of  Charlestonians.  In  another 
fight  which  occurred  just  oif  Charleston  bar,  a  crew  of 
citizens  under  Governor  Robert  Johnson  defeated  the 
pirate  Richard  Worley,  who  was  killed  in  the  action,  and 
captured  his-  ship,  which,  when  the  hatches  were  opened 
proved  to  be  full  of  prisoners,  thirty-six  of  them  women. 
Even  as  late  as  the  period  of  the  War  of  1812 — a  war 
which  did  not  affect  Charleston  save  in  the  way  of  de- 
stroying her  shipping  and  causing  poverty  and  distress 
— a  case  of  brutal  piracy  is  recorded.  The  daughter  of 
Aaron  Burr,  Theodosia  by  name,  was  married  to  Gover- 
nor Joseph  Alston.  After  her  father's  trial  for  high 
treason,  when  he  was  disgraced  and  broken,  she  tried  to 
comfort  him,  for  the  two  were  peculiarly  devoted.  In- 
tending to  visit  him  she  set  sail  from  Charleston  for 
New  York  in  a  ship  which  was  never  heard  from  again. 
Somewhere  I  have  read  a  description  of  the  distraught 
father's  long  vigils  at  New  York,  where  he  would  stand 
gazing  out  to  sea  long  after  all  hope  had  been  abandoned 
by  others.  Mrs.  St.  Julien  Ravenel  tells  us  in  her  charm- 
ing book,  that  thirty  years  later  an  old  sailor,  dying  in  a 
village  of  the  North  Carolina  coast,  confessed  that  he 
had  been  one  of  a  pirate  crew  which  had  captured  the 
ship  and  compelled  the  passengers  to  walk  the  plank. 
This  story  is  also  given  by  Charles  Gayarre,  who  says 

317 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

the  pirate  chief  was  none  other  than  Dominick  You, 
who  fought  under  Jackson  at  the  Battle  of  New  Orleans, 
and  is  buried  in  that  city.  The  husband  and  father 
of  Mrs.  Alston  were  spared  the  ghastly  tale,  Mrs.  Ra- 
venel  says,  since  both  were  already  in  their  graves 
when  the  sailor's  deathbed  confession  solved  the  mys- 
tery. 

In  the  Revolution,  Charleston  played  an  important 
part.  Men  of  Charleston  were,  of  course,  among  the 
signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Charles 
Cotesworth  Pinckney,  who  gave  us  the  immortal  maxim : 
"Millions  for  defense,  but  not  one  cent  for  tribute!" 
who  was  on  Washington's  staff,  was  later  Ambassador 
to  France  and  president-general  of  the  Sons  of  the  Cin- 
cinnati, was  a  Charlestonian  of  the  Charlestonians,  and 
lies  buried  in  St.  Michael's.  Such  Revolutionary  names 
as  Marion,  Laurens,  William  Washington,  Greene, 
Hampton,  Moultrie  and  Sumter  are  associated  with  ihc 
place,  and  two  of  these  are  reechoed  in  the  names  of 
those  famous  forts  in  Charleston  harbor  on  which  at- 
tention was  fixed  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War: 
Moultrie  and  Sumter — the  latter,  target  for  the  first 
shot  fired  in  the  conflict. 

Nearly  thirty  years  before  the  Civil  War,  Charleston 
had  distinguished  herself  in  the  arts  of  peace  by  produc- 
ing the  first  locomotive  tried  in  the  United  States,  and  by 
constructing  the  first  consecutive  hundred  miles  of  rail- 
road ever  built  in  the  world,  and  now,  with  the  War, 
she  distinguished  herself  by  initiating  other  mechanical 

318 


HISTORY  AND  ARISTOCRACY 

devices  of  very  different  character — a  semi-submersible 
torpedo  boat  and  the  first  submarine  to  torpedo  a  hos- 
tile war  vessel.  True,  David  Bushnell  of  Connecticut 
did  construct  a  crude  sort  of  submarine  during  the  Rev- 
olutionary War,  and  succeeded  in  getting  under  a  Brit- 
ish ship  with  the  machine,  but  he  was  unable  to  fasten 
his  charge  of  powder  and  his  effort  consequently  failed. 
Robert  Fulton  also  experimented  with  submarines,  or 
"plunging  boats"  as  he  called  them,  and  was  encouraged 
for  a  time  by  Napoleon  I.  The  little  David  of  the  Con- 
federate navy  is  sometimes  referred  to  as  the  first  sub- 
marine but  the  David  was  not  actually  an  underwater 
boat,  but  a  torpedo  boat  which  could  run  awash,  with  her 
funnels  and  upper  works  slightly  out  of  water.  She 
was  a  cigar-shaped  vessel  thirty-three  feet  long,  built  of 
wood,  propelled  by  steam,  and  carrying  her  torpedo  on 
a  pole,  forward.  Dr.  St.  Julien  Ravenel  of  Charleston 
and  Captain  Theodore  Stoney  devised  the  craft,  and  she 
was  built  by  funds  subscribed  by  Charleston  merchants. 
In  command  of  Lieutenant  W.  T.  Glassell,  C.S.N.,  and 
with  three  other  men  aboard,  she  torpedoed  the  United 
States  ship  Nezv  Ironsides,  flagship  of  the  fleet  blockad- 
ing Charleston.  The  New  Ironsides  was  crippled,  but 
not  lost.  After  this  United  States  vessels  blockading 
Charleston  protected  themselves  with  booms.  This  re- 
sulted in  the  construction  of  an  actual  undersea  torpedo 
boat,  the  Hunley.  This  extraordinary  vessel  has  been 
spoken  of  as  having  had  the  appearance  of  a  huge  iron 
cofiin,  as  well  as  the  attributes  of  one,  for  she  proved  a 

319 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

death-trap  for  successive  crews  on  three  trial  trips.  As 
there  were  no  electric  motors  or  gasoline  engines  in  those 
days,  she  was  run  by  hand,  eight  men  crowded  together 
turning  a  crank-shaft  which  operated  her  propeller. 
After  repeated  sinkings,  she  was  raised,  manned  by  new 
men,  and  sent  forth  again.  Finally,  in  Charleston  har- 
bor she  succeeded  in  destroying  the  United  States  man- 
o'-war  Housatonic,  but  at  the  same  time  went  down,  her- 
self, drowning  or  suffocating  all  on  board.  A  memorial 
drinking  fountain  on  the  Battery,  at  the  foot  of  Meeting 
Street,  commemorates  *'the  men  of  the  Confederate 
Army  and  Navy,  first  in  marine  warfare  to  employ  tor- 
pedo boats — 1863-1865."  On  this  memorial  are  given 
the  names  of  sixteen  men  who  perished  in  torpedo  attacks 
on  the  blockading  fleet,  among  them  Horace  L.  Hunley, 
set  down  as  inventor  of  the  submarine  boat.  The 
names  of  fourteen  others  who  were  lost  are  unknown. 

Lord  William  Campbell,  younger  son  of  the  Duke  of 
Argyll,  was  British  governor  at  Charleston  when  the 
Revolution  broke  out.  He  had  married  a  ]\Iiss  Izard,  of 
Charleston,  who  brought  him  a  dowry  of  fifty  thousand 
pounds,  a  large  sum  in  those  times.  Their  home  was  in 
a  famous  old  house  which  stands  on  Meeting  Street,  and 
it  was  from  the  back  yard  of  this  house  that  Lord  Wil- 
liam fled  in  a  rowboat  to  a  British  man-o'-w^ar,  when  it 
became  evident  that  Charleston  was  no  longer  hospitable 
to  representatives  of  the  Crown.  Later  his  wife  fol- 
lowed him  to  Great  Britain,  w'here  they  remained. 

320 


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HISTORY  AND  ARISTOCRACY 

The  Pringle  House,  as  it  is  now  called,  formerly  the 
Brewton  house,  perhaps  the  most  superb  old  residence  in 
the  city,  was  the  headquarters  of  General  Sir  Henry 
Clinton,  after  he  had  captured  Charleston,  and  was  the 
residence  of  Lord  Rawdon,  the  unpleasant  British  com- 
mander who  succeeded  Clinton.  Cornwallis  lived  out- 
side the  town  at  Drayton  Hall,  which  still  stands,  on  the 
Ashley  River.  After  his  capture  Cornwallis  was  ex- 
changed for  Henry  Laurens,  a  distinguished  Charles- 
tonian,  who,  though  he  wept  over  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence, was  before  long  president  of  the  Continen- 
tal Congress,  and  later  went  to  France,  where  he  was 
associated  with  Benjamin  Franklin,  John  Jay  and  John 
Adams  in  negotiating  the  treaty  of  peace  and  independ- 
ence for  America. 

Mrs.  Ravenel  says  in  her  book  that  Sherman  de- 
stroyed all  but  one  of  the  superb  old  houses  on  the 
Ashley  River,  and  when  we  consider  that  Sherman's 
troops  invested  Charleston  just  before  the  end  of  the 
War,  and  reflect  upon  the  general's  notorious  ''careless- 
ness with  fire,"  we  have  cause  for  national  rejoicing  that 
Charleston,  with  its  unmatched  buildings  and  their 
splendid  contents,  was  not  laid  in  ashes,  as  were  Atlanta 
and  Columbia.  Had  Sherman  burned  Charleston  it 
would  be  hard  for  even  a  Yankee  to  forgive  him. 

Even  without  the  aid  of  the  Northern  general,  the 
city  has  been  able  to  furnish  disastrous  conflagrations 
of  her  own,  over  a  period  of  two  centuries  and  more, 
and .  I    find    in    the    quaint    reminiscences    of    Charles 

321 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Eraser,  already  alluded  to,  a  lamentation  that,  because 
of  fires,  many  of  the  old  landmarks  have  disap- 
peared, and  the  city  is  "losing  its  look  of  picturesque 
antiquity."  To  make  matters  worse,  there  came,  in 
1886,  an  earthquake,  rendering  seven  eighths  of  the 
houses  uninhabitable  until  repairs  aggregating  some  mil- 
lions of  dollars  had  been  made.  Up  to  the  time  of  the 
earthquake  the  old  mansion  from  which  Lord  William 
Campl)ell  fled  at  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution,  was 
adorned  by  a  battlemented  roof.  It  is  recorded  that 
when  the  shock  came,  an  Englishman  was  in  the  house, 
and  that  in  his  eagerness  to  get  outdoors  he  pushed 
others  aside.  As  he  reached  the  front  steps,  however, 
the  battlements  came  crashing  down.  He  was  the  one 
person  from  that  house  who  perished,  and  his  only  mon- 
ument is  the  patch  of  comparatively  new  stone  where  the 
broken  steps  have  been  repaired. 

My  companion  and  T  achieved  entrance  to  one  of  the 
famous  old  Charleston  houses  which  we  had  been  par- 
ticularly anxious  to  see,  through  the  kindness  of  a  lady 
to  whom  we  had  a  letter  of  introduction,  who  happened 
to  be  a  relative  of  the  owner  of  the  house. 

It  seems  necessary  to  explain,  at  this  juncture,  that  in 
Charleston,  many  proper  names  of  foreign  origin  have 
been  corrupted  in  pronunciation.  A  few  examples  will 
suffice:  The  Dutch  name  Vanderhorst,  conspicuous  in 
the  early  annals  of  the  city,  has  come  to  be  pronounced 
"Van-Dross";    Legare,    the   name   of    another    distin- 

322 


HISTORY  AND  ARISTOCRACY 

guished  old  family,  commemorated  in  the  name  of  Le- 
gare  Street,  is  pronounced  "Legree";  De  Saussure  has 
become  "Dess-a-sore,"  with  the  accent  on  the  first  syl- 
lable, and  Prioleau  is  called  "Pray-low." 

I  was  unaware  of  these  matters  when  my  companion 
and  I  visited  the  ancient  house  I  speak  of.  Though  I 
had  heard  the  name  of  the  proprietor  of  the  mansion 
spoken  many  times,  and  recognized  it  as  a  distinguished 
Charleston  name,  I  had  never  seen  it  written ;  however, 
without  having  given  the  matter  much  thought,  I  had, 
unfortunately,  reached  my  own  conclusions  as  to  how 
it  was  spelled.  Still  more  unfortunately,  while  I  was 
delighting  in  the  drawing-room  of  that  wonderful  old 
house,  with  the  portraits  of  ladies  in  powdered  hair  and 
men  in  cocked  hats  and  periwigs  looking  down  upon 
me  from  the  walls,  I  was  impelled  to  reassure  myself 
as  to  the  spelling  of  the  name.  Let  us  assume  that  the 
name  sounded  like  ''Bowfee."  That  was  not  it  but  it 
will  suffice  for  illustration. 

"I  suppose,"  I  said  to  our  charming  cicerone,  ''that  the 
family  name  is  spelled  'B-o-w-f-e-e' ?" 

I  had  no  sooner  spoken  than  I  realized,  with  a  sud- 
den access  of  horror  what  I  had  done.  In  guessing  I 
had  sinned,  but  in  guessing  wrong  I  had  ruined  myself. 
All  this  came  to  me  instantly  and  positively,  as  by  a 
psychic  message  of  unparalleled  definiteness  from  the 
dead  ancestors  w^hose  portraits  hung  upon  the  paneling. 
It  was  as  though  they  had  joined  in  a  great  ghostly  shout 
of  execration,  which  was  the  more  awful  because  it  was 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

a  silent  shout  that  jarred  upon  the  senses  rather  than 
the  ear  drums.  Then,  .before  the  lady  replied,  while 
the  sound  of  my  own  voice  saying  "B-o-w-f-e-e" 
seemed  to  reverberate  through  the  apartment,  I  sud- 
denly comprehended  the  spirit  of  Charleston:  under- 
stood that,  compared  with  Charleston,  Boston  is  as  a 
rough  mining  camp,  while  New  York  hardly  exists  at 
all,  being  a  mere  miasma  of  vulgarity. 

There  was  a  long  silence,  in  which  the  lady  to  whom 
I  had  spoken  gazed  from  the  window  at  the  rainy  twi- 
light. Her  silence,  I  am  persuaded,  was  not  intended  to 
rebuke  me;  she  was  not  desirous  of  crushing  me;  she 
was  merely  stunned.  Indeed,  when  at  last  she  spoke, 
there  was  in  her  tone  something  of  gentleness. 

'The  name,"  she  said,  ''is  Beaufoy — B-e-a-u-f-o-y. 
It  is  of  Huguenot  origin." 

Passionately  I  wished  for  an  earthquake — one  that 
might  cause  the  floor  to  open  beneath  me,  or  the  roof  to 
fall  through  and  blot  me  from  her  sight.  How  to  get 
away? — that  was  my  one  thought.  To  cover  my  em- 
barrassment, I  tried  to  make  small-talk  about  a  medal- 
lion of  an  Emperor  of  France,  which  hung  upon  the 
paneling.  The  lady  said  it  had  been  given  to  an  an- 
cestor of  the  Beaufoys  by  the  Emperor  himself.  That, 
for  some  reason,  seemed  to  make  things  rather  worse. 
I  wished  I  had  not  dragged  the  Emperor  into  the  con- 
versation. 

'Tt  is  getting  dark,"  I  said.  "It  is  time  we  were  go- 
ing," 

324 


HISTORY  AND  ARISTOCRACY 

This  the  lady  did  not  dispute. 

Of  our  actual  farewells  and  exit  from  that  house,  I 
remember  not  a  detail,  save  that,  as  we  departed,  I  knew 
that  we  should  never  see  this  lady  again;  that  for  her 
I  no  longer  existed,  and  that  in  my  downfall  I  had 
dragged  my  companion  with  me.  The  next  thing  I 
definitely  recollect  is  walking  swiftly  up  Meeting  Street 
beside  him,  in  the  rain  and  darkness  of  late  afternoon. 
All  the  way  back  to  the  hotel  we  strode  side  by  side  in 
pregnant  silence;  neither  did  we  speak  as  we  ascended 
to  our  rooms. 

Some  time  later,  while  I  was  dressing  for  dinner,  he 
entered  my  bedchamber.  At  the  moment,  as  it  hap- 
pened, I  was  putting  cuff-links  into  a  dress  shirt.  With 
this  task  I  busied  myself,  dreading  to  look  up.  In  the 
meantime  I  felt  his  eyes  fixed  upon  me.  When  the 
links  were  in,  I  delayed  meeting  his  gaze  by  buttoning 
the  little  button  in  one  sleeve-vent,  above  the  cuff". 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  you  button  those  idiotic  little 
buttons?"  he  demanded.  'T  didn't  know  that  anybody 
ever  did  that !" 

'T  don't  alwa3^s,"  I  answered  apologetically. 

'T  should  hope  not!"  he  returned.  Then  he  con- 
tinued: "Do  you  remember  where  we  are  to  be  taken 
to-morrow  ?" 

"Yes,"  I  said.     "To  the  Pringle  house." 

"Well,"  said  he,  "I  just  came  in  to  ask  you,  as  a 
favor,  not  to  get  oft*  any  fanciful  ideas  that  you  may 
have  thought  up,  about  the  way  to  spell  Pringle." 

325 


CHAPTER  XXX 
POLITICS,  A  NEWSPAPER  AND  ST.  CECILIA 

CHARLESTON  is  very  definitely  a  part  of  South 
Carolina.  That  is  not  always  the  case  with  a 
State  and  its  chief  city.  It  is  not  the  case  with 
the  State  and  the  City  of  New  York.  New  York  City 
has  about  the  same  relation  to  New  York  State  as  a 
goldpiece  has  to  a  large  table-top  on  one  corner  of  which 
it  lies.  Charleston,  on  the  other  hand,  harmonizes  into 
its  state  setting,  as  a  beautiful  ancient  vase  harmonizes 
into  the  setting  afforded  by  some  rare  old  cabinet. 
Moreover,  Charleston's  individuality  amongst  cities  is 
more  or  less  duplicated  in  South  Carolina's  individuality 
amongst  States.  South  Carolina  is  a  State  as  definitely 
marked — though  in  altogether  different  ways — as  Kan- 
sas or  California.  It  is  a  State  that  does  nothing  by 
halves.  It  has  rattlesnakes  larger  and  more  venomous 
than  other  rattlesnakes,  and  it  has  twice  had  the  dis- 
graceful Cole  Blease,  otherwise  "To-hell-with-the-Con- 
stitution"  Blease,  as  governor.  For  senator  it  has  the 
old  war-horse  Tillman,  a  man  so  admired  for  his  power 
that,  in  our  easy-going  way,  we  almost  forgive  his 
dives  into  the  pork-barrel.  Tillman  has  been  to  South 
Carolina  more  or  less  what  the  late  Senator  Hale 
was  to  his  section  of  New   England.     Hale  grabbed 

326 


CHARLESTON  POLITICS 

a  navy  yard  for  Kittery,  Maine  (the  Portsmouth 
yard),  where  there  never  should  have  been  a  navy  yard; 
Tillman  performed  a  like  service,  under  like  circum- 
stances, for  Charleston.  Both  are  purely  political  yards. 
Naval  officers  opposed  them,  but  were  overridden  by  poli- 
ticians, as  so  often  happens.  For  in  time  of  peace  the 
army  and  the  navy  are  political  footballs,  and  it  is  only 
when  war  comes  that  the  politicians  cease  kicking  them 
about  and  cry :  "Now,  football,  turn  into  a  cannon-ball, 
and  save  your  country  and  your  country's  flag!"  For 
obviously,  if  the  flag  cannot  be  saved,  the  politicians  will 
be  without  a  ''starry  banner"  to  gesture  at  and  roar 
about. 

Now,  of  course,  with  war  upon  us,  any  navy  yard  is  a 
blessing,  and  the  Charleston  yard  is  being  used,  as  it 
should  be,  to  the  utmost.  But  in  time  of  peace  the  yard 
comes  in  for  much  criticism  from  the  navy,  the  conten- 
tion being  that  it  is  not  favorably  located  from  a  stra- 
tegic point  of  view,  and  that,  owing  to  bars  in  the  Cooper 
River,  up  which  it  is  situated,  it  cannot  be  entered  by 
large  ships.  The  point  is  also  made  that  while  labor  is 
cheaper  at  this  yard  than  at  any  other,  skilled  metal- 
workers are  hard  to  get.  Friends  of  the  yard  contend, 
upon  the  other  hand,  that  it  is  desirable  because  of  its 
convenience  to  the  Caribbean  Sea,  where,  according  to 
naval  theory,  this  country  will  some  day  have  to  fight  a 
battle  in  defense  of  the  Panama  Canal.  The  Pensacola 
yard,  it  is  pointed  out,  is  exposed  and  can  be  bombarded, 
whereas  the  Charleston  yard  is  far  enough  inland  to  be 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

safe  from  sea  attack.  As  to  the  channel,  it  is  navigable 
for  destroyers  and  other  small  craft — though  whether  it 
would  be  so  to  a  large  destroyer  which  had  been  injured 
and  was  drawing  more  water  than  usual,  I  do  not  know. 
The  practical  situation  of  the  navy,  with  regard  to  this 
and  some  of  the  other  political  yards,  is  like  that  of  some 
man  who  has  been  left  a  lot  of  heterogeneous  houses, 
scattered  about  town,  none  of  them  suited  to  his  pur- 
poses, and  who  is  obliged  to  scatter  his  family  amongst 
them  as  best  he  can,  or  else  abandon  them  and  build  a 
new  house.  We  have  been  following  the  former  course, 
and  are  only  now  preparing  to  adopt  the  latter,  by  estab- 
lishing a  naval  base  at  Norfolk,  as  mentioned  in  an 
earlier  chapter. 

Charleston  politics  have  been  peculiar.  Until  a  few 
years  ago  the  government  of  the  city  had  long  rested  in 
the  hands  of  a  few  old  families,  among  them  the  Gads- 
dens  and  the  Rhetts.  The  overthrow  of  this  ancient  and 
aristocratic  rule  by  the  election  to  the  mayoralty  of  John 
P.  Grace,  an  alleged  "friend  of  the  people,"  was 
spoken  of  by  the  new  York  "Sun,"  as  being  not  a  mere 
change  in  municipal  government,  but  the  fall  of  a 
dynasty  which  had  controlled  the  city  politically,  finan- 
cially and  socially  for  a  century  and  a  half.  ]\Ir.  Grace 
may  be  dismissed  wath  the  remark  that  he  supported 
Blease  and  that  he  is  editor  of  the  recently  founded 
Charleston  "American,"  which  I  have  heard  called  a 
Hearst  newspaper,  and  which  certainly  wears  the  Hearst 
look  about  it. 

328 


CHARLESTON  POLITICS 

On  January  19,  1917,  this  newspaper  printed  a  full 
account  of  the  ball  of  the  St.  Cecilia  Society,  Charles- 
ton's most  sacred  social  organization.  Never  before  in 
the  history  of  the  St.  Cecilia  Society,  covering  a  period 
of  a  century  and  a  half,  had  an  account  of  one  of  its 
balls,  and  the  names  of  those  attending,  been  printed. 
The  publication  caused  a  great  stir  in  the  city  and  re- 
sulted in  an  editorial,  said  to  have  been  written  by  Grace, 
which  appeared  next  day,  and  which  reveals  something 
of  Charleston  tradition  and  something  of  Grace,  as  well. 
It  was  headed  "The  Saint  Cecilia  Ball,"  and  ran  as 
follows : 

We  carried  on  yesterday  a  full  account  of  the  famous  Saint 
Cecilia  Ball.  From  the  foundation  of  Charleston  until  the  pres- 
ent moment  it  has  been  regarded  as  an  unwritten  law  that  the 
annual  events  of  this  ancient  society  shall  not  be  touched  upon. 

Of  course  it  was  permissible  for  the  thirty-five  thousand  poor 
white  people  of  Charleston  to  talk  about  the  Saint  Cecilia,  and 
to  indulge  in  the  thrilling  sensation  that  comes  to  the  proverbial 
cat  when  she  looks  at  a  queen.  Some  of  them,  moved  by  curi- 
osity, even  ventured  within  half  a  block  of  the  Hibernian  Hall 
to  observe  from  afar  the  gay  festivities. 

The  press  being  forbidden  to  cover  Saint  Cecilia  events,  there 
grew  up  in  the  vulgar  mind  weird  stories  of  what  went  on  be- 
hind the  scenes.  While  the  Saint  Cecilia  has  enjoyed  the  happy 
privilege  of  journalistic  silence,  it  has,  therefore,  correspond- 
ingly suffered  on  the  tongue  of  gossip.  The  truth  is  that  we  al- 
ways KNEW  that  the  Saint  Cecilia  was  just  about  the  same  as 
every  other  social  collection  of  human  beings — a  little  gaiety  fla- 
vored with  a  little  frivolity;  nothing  more,  nothing  less. 

There  was  a  time  when  this  society  was  the  extreme  limit  of 
social  exclusiveness.     It 'was  an  anachronism  on  American  soil, 

329 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

a  matter  of  pure  heredity,  the  right  to  nicnibersliip  in  which  was  as 
fixed  as  Median  law,  but  transcendently  above  the  median  Hne. 
Now,  however,  since  the  society,  in  keeping  with  the  spirit  of 
the  age,  has  relaxed  its  rules  to  admit  from  year  to  year  (if,  in- 
deed, only  a  few  now  and  then)  members  whose  blood  is  far 
from  indigo,  we  think  it  perfectly  legitimate  for  the  newspaper, 
w'hich  represents  all  classes  of  people,  to  invade  the  quondam 
sanctity  of  its  functions  which  are  now  being  oplned  to  all 
classes. 

Following  this,  the  editorial  quoted  from  Don  Seitz's 
hook,  telling  how  the  elder  James  Gordon  Bennett  was 
in  the  habit  of  mocking  "events  to  which  he  was  not  in- 
vited," and  how,  in  1840,  he  managed  to  get  one  of  his 
reporters  into  "Henry  I  Brevoort's  fancy  dress  ball,  the 
social  event  of  the  period."  The  quotation  from  Mr. 
Seitz's  book  ends  with  the  following:  "A  far  cry  from 
this  to  1894,  when  Ward  McAlister,  arbiter  of  the  '400' 
at  Mrs.  Astor's  famous  ball,  became  a  leader  on  social 
topics  for  the  New  York  'World.'  Tt  took  many  years 
for  this  umbrage  at  the  reporting  of  social  events  to  wear 
off  and  make  the  reporter  welcome.  Indeed,  there  is  one 
place  yet  on  the  map  where  it  is  not  even  now  permitted 
to  record  a  social  event,  though  the  editors  and  owners 
of  papers  may  be  among  those  present.  That  is  Charles- 
ton, South  Carolina.  .  .  ." 

The  Charleston  editor  then  resumes  his  own  reflec- 
tions in  this  wise : 

We  regret  to  say,  and  it  is  the  regret  of  our  life,  that  we  were 
not  one  of  the  editors  present  at  the  Saint  Cecilia.  This,  there- 
fore, relieves  us  of  the  implied  condition  to  adhere  any  longer 

330 


CHARLESTON  POLITICS 

to  this  silly  and  absurd  custom  which,  in  the  language  of  this 
great  newspaper  man,  has  made  its  last  stand  "on  the  map"  at 
Charleston.  We  are  glad  that  we  have  forever  nailed,  in  the 
opinion  of  one  hundred  million  ordinary  people  who  make  the 
American  nation,  the  absurdity  that  there  is  any  social  event  so 
sacred,  any  people  so  DIFFERENT  from  the  rest  of  us  poor  hu- 
man beings,  that  we  dare  not  speak  of  them. 

Just  why  private  social  events  should  be,  as  Mr.  Grace 
seems  to  assume,  particularly  the  property  of  the  press, 
it  is  somewhat  difficult  to  explain,  unless  we  do  so  by 
accepting  as  fundamental  the  theory  that  the  press  is 
justified  in  invading  personal  privacy  purely  in  order  to 
pander,  on  the  one  hand  to  the  new  breed  of  vulgar  rich 
which  thrives  on  "publicity,"  and  on  the  other,  to  the 
breed  of  vulgar  poor  which  enjoys  reading  that  su- 
premest  of  American  inanities,  the  ''society  page," 

What  Mr.  Seitz  said  in  his  book  as  to  the  reticence  of 
Charleston  newspapers,  where  society  is  concerned,  is, 
however,  generally  true — amazingly  so  to  one  who  has 
become  hardened  to  the  attitude  of  the  metropolitan  press 
elsewhere.  The  society  columns  of  Charleston  papers 
hardly  ever  print  the  names  of  the  city's  real  aristocrats, 
and  in  the  past  they  have  gone  much  farther  than  this, 
for  they  have  been  known  to  suppress  important  news 
stories  in  which  prominent  citizens  were  unpleasantly 
involved.  It  may  be  added  that  earthquakes  are  evi- 
dently classed  as  members  of  the  aristocracy,  since  occa- 
sional tremors  felt  in  the  city  are  pointedly  ignored  by 
the  press.     Whether  or  not  the  paper  edited  by  the  f  ear- 

331 


AMERICAN  ADXT.XTURES 

less  Mr.  Grace  ignores  these  manifestations  I  am  unal^Io 
to  say.  One  can  easily  fancy  his  taking  a  courageous 
stand  on  such  a  subject  as  well  as  upon  social  matters. 
Indeed,  with  a  few  slight  changes,  his  editorial  upon 
the  St.  Cecilia  ball,  might  be  made  to  serve  equally  well 
after  an  earthquake  shock.     He  might  say : 

The  press  being  forbidden  to  cover  earthquakes,  there  grew 
up  in  the  vulgar  mind  weird  stories  of  what  went  on  behind  the 
scenes.  While  the  earthquakes  have  enjoyed  the  happy  privi- 
lege of  journalistic  silence,  they  have,  therefore,  correspondingly 
suffered  on  the  tongue  of  gossip. 

He  could  also  make  the  point  that  since,  "in  keeping 
with  the  spirit  of  the  age,"  the  earthquake  shakes  people 
''(if  indeed  only  a  few  of  them  now  and  then),  whose 
blood  is  far  from  indigo,  we  think  it  perfectly  legitimate 
for  the  newspaper,  which  represents  ALL  classes  of  peo- 
ple, to  invade  the  quondam  sanctity  of  its  functions 
which  are  now  being  OPENED  to  all  classes." 

But  of  course,  where  the  editor  of  such  a  paper  is 
concerned,  there  is  always  the  element  of  natural  deli- 
cacy and  nicety  of  feeling  to  be  considered.  Mr.  Grace 
felt  that  because  he  was  not  present  at  the  St.  Cecilia 
ball,  he  was  free  to  print  things  about  it.  An  earth- 
quake would  not  be  like  the  St.  Cecilia  Society — it  would 
not  draw  the  line  at  Mr.  Grace.  At  a  Charleston  earth- 
quake he  would  undoubtedly  be  present.  The  question 
therefore  arises:  Having  been  PRESENT,  might  his 
AMOUR  PROPRE  make  him  feel  that  to  REPORT 
the  event  would  not  be  altogether  in  GOOD  TASTE? 


CHARLESTON  POLITICS 

The  St.  Cecilia  Society  began  in  1737  with  a  concert 
given  on  St.  CeciUa's  day,  and  continued  for  many  years 
to  give  concerts  at  which  the  musicians  were  both  ama- 
teurs and  professionals.  Josiah  Quincy,  in  his  "Jour- 
nal," tells  of  having  attended  one  of  these  concerts  in 
1773,  and  speaks  of  the  richness  of  the  men's  apparel, 
noting  that  there  were  "many  with  swords  on." 

When,  in  1819,  difficulty  was  experienced  in  obtaining 
performers,  it  was  proposed  that  a  ball  be  held  in  place 
of  a  concert,  and  by  1822  the  society  was  definitely  trans- 
formed from  a  musical  to  a  dancing  organization,  which 
it  has  remained  ever  since. 

The  statement  in  the  "American"  editorial  that  St. 
Cecilia  balls  have  been  the  subject  of  scandalous  gossip 
is,  I  believe,  quite  false,  as  is  also  the  statement  that  the 
balls  are  now  "being  opened  to  all  classes." 

Mrs.  Ravenel  in  her  book  tells  how  the  organization 
is  run.  Members  are  elected,  and  all  are  men,  though 
the  names  of  the  ladies  of  a  member's  household  are 
placed  on  the  club  list.  "Only  death  or  removal  from 
the  city  erases  them — change  of  fortune  affects  them  not 
at  all."  A  man  whose  progenitors  have  belonged  to  the 
society  is  almost  certain  of  election,  though  there  have 
been  cases  in  which  undesirables  of  good  family  have 
been  blackballed.  Two  blackballs  are  sufficient  to  cause 
the  rejection  of  a  candidate.  Men  who  are  not  of  old 
Charleston  stock  are  carefully  investigated  before  they 
can  be  elected,  but  of  late  years  not  a  few  such,  having 
been  considered  desirable,  have  become  members.     The 

333 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

members  elect  officers  and  a  board  of  managers,  and 
these  have  entire  control  of  the  society.  Three  balls  are 
given  each  year,  one  in  January  and  two  in  Eebruary. 
Until  a  few  years  ago  the  hall  in  which  the  halls  are  given 
was  lighted  by  innumerable  candelabra;  only  lately  has 
electricity  been  used.  The  society  owns  its  own  plate, 
damask,  china  and  glassware,  and  used  to  own  a  good 
stock  of  wines.  Of  late  years,  I  believe,  wines  have  not 
been  served,  the  beverage  of  the  evening  consisting  of 
coffe,  hot  and  iced.  The  greatest  decorum  is  observed 
at  the  balls.  Young  ladies  go  invariably  with  chaper- 
ones ;  following  each  dance  there  is  a  brief  promenade, 
whereafter  the  young  ladies  arc  returned  to  their  duen- 
nas— who,  if  they  be  Charleston  dowagers  in  perfection, 
usually  carry  turkey-feather  fans.  Cards  are  filled 
months  in  advance.  As  lately  as  the  year  1912  every 
other  dance  was  a  square  dance;  since  then,  however,  I 
believe  that  square  dances  have  gone  the  way  of  candle- 
light. The  society  has  an  endowment  and  membership 
is  inexpensive,  costing  but  fifteen  dollars  a  year,  includ- 
ing the  three  balls.  This  enables  young  men  starting 
in  life  to  be  members  without  going  into  extravagance, 
and  is  In  accord  with  the  best  social  tradition  of  Charles- 
ton, where  the  difference  between  an  aristocracy  and  a 
plutocracy  is  well  understood.  Most  of  the  rules  of  the 
organization  are  unwritten.  One  is  that  men  shall  not 
smoke  on  the  premises  during  a  ball;  another  is  that  di- 
vorced persons  shall  not  be  members  or  guests  of  the 
society.     In  this  respect  the  St.  Cecilia  Society  may  be 

334 


CHARLESTON  POLITICS 

said,  in  effect,  to  be  applying,  socially,  the  South  Carolina 
law;  for  South  Carolina  is  the  only  State  in  the  Union 
in  which  divorces  are  not  granted  for  any  cause  what- 
soever. 

This  reminds  me  that  the  State  has  an  anti-tipping 
law.  The  Pullman  porter  is  required  to  hang  up  copies 
of  the  law  in  his  car  when  it  enters  South  Carolina,  and 
copies  of  it  are  displayed  on  the  doors  of  hotel  bedrooms. 
The  penalty  for  giving  or  receiving  a  tip  is  a  fine  of  from 
ten  to  one  hundred  dollars,  or  thirty  days  in  jail.  Per- 
haps the  law  is  observed.  I  know,  at  least,  that  no  one 
offered  me  a  tip  while  I  was  in  that  State. 

The  old  grandees  of  Charleston  were  usually  sent  to 
Oxford  or  Cambridge  for  an  education  and  English  tra- 
dition still  remains,  I  fancy,  the  foundation  for  what 
Charleston  social  life  is  to-day.  I  thought  at  first  that 
Charlestonians  spoke  like  the  English,  but  later  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  there  is  in  the  pronunciation  of  some 
of  them  a  quality  resembling  a  very  faint  brogue — a 
brogue  such  as  might  be  possessed  by  a  cultivated  Irish- 
man who  had  moved  to  England  in  his  boyhood,  and  had 
been  educated  there.  The  "vanishing  /'  of  tidewater 
Virginia  is  also  used  by  some  Charlestonians,  I  am  told, 
though  I  do  not  remember  hearing  it. 

Generalizations  on  the  subject  of  dialectic  peculiarities 
are  dangerous,  as  I  have  good  reason  to  know.  Natu- 
rally, not  all  Charlestonians  speak  alike.  I  should  say, 
however,   that  the  first  a  in  the  words   'Tapa"   and 

335 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

"Mama"  is  frequently  given  a  short  sound,  as  a  in 
"hat" ;  also  that  many  one-syllable  words  are  strung  out 
into  two.  For  instance,  "eight"  is  heard  as  "ay-et" 
("ay"  as  in  "gray") ;  "where"  as  "whey-uh,"  or 
"way-uh,"  and  "hair"  as  "hay-uh."  "Why?"  sometimes 
sounds  like  "Woi?"  Such  words  as  "calm"  and  "palm" 
are  sometimes  given  the  short  a:  "cam"  and  "pam" 
— which,  of  course,  occurs  elsewhere,  too.  The  name 
"Ralph"  is  pronounced  as  "Rafe"  (a  as  in  "rate") — 
which  I  believe  is  Old  English ;  and  the  names  "Saun- 
ders" and  "Sanders"  are  pronounced  exactly  alike,  both 
being  called  "Sanders."  Tomatoes  are  sometimes  called 
"tomatters."  Two  dishes  I  never  heard  of  before  are 
"Hopping  John,"  which  is  rice  cooked  with  peas,  and 
"Limping  Kate,"  which  is  some  other  rice  combination. 
W^hat  we,  in  the  North,  call  an  "ice-cream  freezer"  be- 
comes in  Charleston  an  "ice-cream  churn/'  "Good 
morning"  is  the  salutation  up  to  three  p.  m.,  whereas  in 
other  parts  of  the  South  "Good  evening"  is  said  for  the 
Northern  "Good  afternoon."  Charlestonians  speak  of 
being  "parrot-toed" — not  "pigeon-toed."  Where,  in  the 
North,  we  would  ask  a  friend,  "How  are  things  out  your 
way?"  a  Charlestonian  may  inquire,  "How  are  things 
out  your  side?"  The  expression  "going  out"  means  to 
go  to  St.  Cecilia  Balls,  and  I  have  been  told  that  it  is 
never  used  in  any  other  way.  That  is,  if  a  lady  is  asked : 
"Are  you  going  out  this  winter?"  it  means  definitely, 
"Are  you  going  to  the  St.  Cecilia  balls?"  If  you  heard 
it  said  that  some  one  was  "on  Mount  Pleasant,"  you 

336 


CHARLESTON  POLITICS 

might  suppose  that  Mount  Pleasant  was  an  island;  but 
it  is  not ;  it  is  a  village  on  the  mainland  across  the  Cooper 
River.  And  what  is  to  me  one  of  the  most  curious  ex- 
pressions I  ever  heard  is  "do  don't,"  as  when  a  lady 
called  to  her  daughter,  ''Martha,  do  don't  slam  that  door 

again!" 

How  generally  these  peculiarities  crop  out  in  the 
speech  of  Charleston  I  cannot  say.  It  occurs  to  me, 
however,  that,  assembled  and  catalogued  in  this  way, 
they  may  create  the  idea  that  slovenly  English  is  gen- 
erally spoken  in  the  city.  If  so  they  give  an  impression 
which  I  should  not  wish  to  convey,  since  Charleston  has 
no  more  peculiarities  of  language  than  New  York  or 
Boston,  and  not  nearly  so  many  as  a  number  of  other 
cities.  Cultivated  Charlestonians  have,  moreover,  the 
finest  voices  I  have  heard  in  any  American  city. 


337 


CHAPTER  XXXT 
"GULLA"  AND  THE  BACK  COUNTRY 

THE  most  extraordinary  negro  dialect  I  know  of 
is  the  "gulla"  (sometimes  spelled  "gullah")  of 
the  rice  plantation  negroes  of  South  Carolina 
and  of  the  islands  off  the  South  Carolina  and  Georgia 
coast.  I  believe  that  the  region  of  Charleston  is  head- 
(|uarters  for  "gulla  niggers,"  though  I  have  heard  the 
argot  spoken  as  far  south  as  Sepeloe  Island,  off  the  town 
of  Darien,  Georgia,  near  the  Florida  line.  Gulla  is  such 
an  extreme  dialect  as  to  be  almost  a  language  by  itself. 
Whence  it  came  I  do  not  know,  but  I  judge  that  it  is  a 
combination  of  English  with  the  primitive  tongues  of 
African  tribes,  just  as  the  dialect  of  old  Creole  negroes, 
in  Louisiana,  is  a  combination  of  African  tribal  tongues 
with  French. 

A  Charleston  lady  tells  me  that  negroes  on  different 
rice  plantations — even  on  adjoining  plantations — speak 
dialects  which  dift'er  somewhat,  and  I  know  of  my  own 
knowledge  that  thick  gulla  is  almost  incomprehensible 
to  white  persons  who  have  not  learned,  by  long  practice, 
to  understand  it. 

A  lady  sent  a  gulla  negro  with  a  message  to  a  friend. 
This  is  the  message  as  it  was  delivered : 

338 


*'GULLA"  AND  THE  BACK  COUNTRY 

''Missis  seh  all  dem  turrah  folk  done  come  shum. 
Enty  you  duh  gwine  come  shum?"  (To  get  the  guUa 
effect  the  sounds  should  be  uttered  very  rapidly. ) 

Translated,  this  means:  "Mistress  says  all  them  other 
folks  have  come  to  see  her.     Are  n't  you  coming  to  see 

her?" 

"Shum"  is  a  good  gulla  word.  It  means  all  kinds  of 
things  having  to  do  with  seeing— fo  see  her,  to  see  him, 
to  see  if.  Thus,  "You  shum,  enty?"  may  mean,  You 
^^^  jiijji — Jicr — or  iff  or  You  see  zuhaf  lie — she — or  it — 
is  doing,  or  has  done?  For  gulla  has  no  genders  and 
no  tenses.  "Enty"  is  a  general  question:  Are  nf  you? 
Didnf  you?  Is  nf  if?  etc.  Another  common  gulla 
word  is  "Buckra"  which  means  a  zvhife  man  of  fhc 
upper  class,  in  contradistinction  to  a  poor  white.  I  have 
known  a  negro  to  refer  to  "de  frame  o'  de  bud,"  mean- 
ing the  carcass,  or  frame,  of  a  fowl.  "Ay  ain'  day" 
means  "They  are  n't  (ain't)  there." 

A  friend  of  mine  who  resided  at  Bluft'ton,  South 
Carolina,  has  told  me  of  an  old  gulla  fisherman  who 
spoke  in  parables. 

A  lady  would  ask  him :  "Have  you  any  fish  to-day?" 
To  which,  if  replying  affirmatively,  he  would  answer: 
"Missis,  de  gate  open":  meaning,  "The  door  (of  the 
'car,'  or  fish-box)  is  open  to  you."  If  he  had  no  fish  he 
would  reply :  "Missis,  ebb-tide  done  tack  (take)  crick" ; 
signifying:  "The  tide  has  turned  and  it  is  too  late  to  go 
to  catch  fish."  This  old  man  called  whisky  "muhgundy 
smash,"  the  term  evidently  derived  from  some  idea  of 

339 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 


the  word  "burgundy"  combined  with  the  word  "mash." 
Here  is  a  giilla  dialect  story,  with  a  Hne-for-Hne  trans- 
lation.    A  train  has  killed  a  cow,  and  a  negro  witness 
is  being  examined  by  a  justice  of  the  peace: 


Justice — Uncle  John,  did  you  see 
what  killed  Sam's  cow  ? 

Negro — Co'ose  Uh  shum. 

Justice — What  was  it,  Uncle 
John? 

Negro — Dat  black  debble  you-all 
runnin'    tru    we    Ian'.     Nigga    duh 


(Of)  course  I  saw  him. 


(It  was)   that  black  devil  you-all 
(are)     running    through    our    land. 
(A)   nigger  (fireman)  he 
stands   there    (and)    he   pours   coal 
into  its  stom- 
ach.    (A)     white    man     (engineer) 
he  sits  up  on  his  scat, 
(and)     he    smokes    his    cigar,    and 
every    time 
eh  twis'  eh  tail  eh  run  fasteh.     An'      he  twists  its   (engine's)   tail  it  runs 

faster.     And 
eh  screams  dis  lak  uh  pantuh.     Eben       it  screams  just  like  a  panther.     Even 
w'en  eh  git  tuh  de  station,  eh  stan'      when  it  gets  to  the  station,  it  stands 
tuh    de    station    an'    seh :     "Kyan-      at    the    station    and    says:     "Can't- 


stan'  deh,  duh  po'  coal  in  eh  stom- 
ach. Buckra  duh  sit  up  on  eh  seat, 
duh  smoke  eh  cigah,  an'  ebry  tahme 


stop!     Kyau-stop\     Kyau-stop\" 
Sam  cow  binna  browse  down  deh 


stop!     Can't-stopl     Ca«'/-stop!" 

Sam's    cow    was    browsing    down 
there 

tuh   Bull  Head   Crick.     Eh  ram  eh      to    (at)    Bull  Head  Creek.     It    (en- 
gine)  rammed  its 

nose  innum,   an'  eh  bussum  wahde      nose    into    it     (the    cow),    and    it 

busted  him  wide 

loose.     Eh    t'row    eh    intrus    on    de      loose   (open).     It  threw  its  entrails 

on  the 

reyel   on   de   cross-tie,   an'   clean-up      rails,  on  the  cross-tics,  and  clean  up 


on  de  tdegram  pole. 


on  the  telegraph  pole. 


Mrs.  Leiding  (Harriette  Kershaw  Leiding),  of 
Charleston,  has  done  a  fine  service  to  lovers  of  Old 
Charleston,  and  its  ways,  in  collecting  and  publishing  in 

340 


"GULLA"  AND  THE  BACK  COUNTRY 

pamphlet  form  a  number  of  the  cries  of  the  negro  street 
vendors.  Of  these  I  shall  rob  Mrs.  Leiding's  booklet 
of  but  one  example — the  cry  of  a  little  negro  boy,  a  ped- 
dler of  shrimp  ("swimp"),  who  stood  under  a  window 
in  the  early  morning  and  sang: 


^^S^^^S^il^l^^^^ 


s    Daw-trj  Daw!  an' a  swimp-y  raw!    an'  a  Daw  -  try  Daw  -  try  Daw- try  Raw     Swimp. 

While  on  the  subject  of  the  Charleston  negro  I  must 
not  neglect  two  of  his  superstitions.  One  is  his  belief 
that  a  two-dollar  bill  is  unlucky.  The  curse  may  be  re- 
moved only  by  tearing  off  a  corner  of  the  bill.  The 
other  is  that  it  is  unlucky  to  hand  any  one  a  pin.  A 
Charleston  lady  told  me  that  when  she  was  motoring 
and  wished  to  pin  her  hat  or  her  veil,  she  could  never 
get  her  negro  chauft'eur  to  hand  her  pins.  Instead  he 
would  stick  them  in  the  laprobe,  or  in  the  sleeve  of  his 
coat,  whence  she  could  pick  them  out  herself.  Another 
lady  told  me  of  the  case  of  an  old  black  slave  who  lived 
years  ago  on  a  plantation  on  the  Santee  River,  owned 
by  her  family.  This  slave,  who  was  a  very  powerful, 
taciturn  and  high-tempered  man,  had  a  curious  habit  of 
disappearing  for  about  half  an  hour  each  day.  He 
would  go  into  the  swamp,  and  for  many  years  no  one 
ever  followed  him,  the  other  negroes  being  afraid  to  do 
so  because  of  his  temper  and  his  strength.  At  last, 
however,  they  did  spy  upon  him  and  discovered  that  in 
the  swamp  there  stood  a  cypress  tree  on  which  were 
strange  rude  carvings,  before  which  he  prostrated  him- 

341 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

self.  No  one  ever  learned  the  exact  significance  of 
this,  but  it  was  assumed  that  the  man  practised  some 
barbaric  form  of  worship,  Ijrought  from  Africa. 

The  country  back  of  Charleston  is  very  lovely  and  is 
rich  in  interest,  even  though  most  of  the  houses  on  the 
old  estates  have  been  destroyed.  Drayton  1 1  all,  how- 
ever, stands,  and  the  old  Drayton  estate.  Magnolia,  not 
far  distant  from  the  Hall  (which  was  on  another  es- 
tate), has  one  of  the  most  famous  gardens  in  the  world. 
Seven  persons  touching  fingertips  can  barely  encircle  the 
trunks  of  some  of  the  live-oaks  at  Magnolia;  there  are 
camellias  more  than  twenty  feet  high,  and  a  rose  tree 
nearly  as  large,  but  the  great  glory  of  the  garden  is 
its  huge  azaleas — ninety-two  varieties,  it  is  said — which, 
when  they  blossom  in  the  spring,  are  so  wonderful  that 
people  make  long  journeys  for  no  other  purpose  than  to 
see  them. 

In  "Harper's  Magazine"  for  December,  1875,  I  find 
an  account  of  the  gardens  which  were,  at  that  time,  far 
from  new.  The  azaleas  w^ere  then  twelve  and  thirteen 
feet  tall ;  now,  I  am  told,  they  reach  to  a  height  of  more 
than  twenty  feet,  with  a  corresponding  spread. 

"It  is  almost  impossible,"  says  the  anonymous  writer 
of  the  article,  "to  give  a  Northerner  any  idea  of  the 
affluence  of  color  in  this  garden  when  its  flowers  are  in 
bloom.  Imagine  a  long  walk  with  the  moss-draped  live- 
oaks  overhead,  a  fairy  lake  and  a  bridge  in  the  distance, 
and  on  each  side  the  great  fluffy  masses  of  rose  and  pink 

342 


"GULLA"  AND  THE  BACK  COUNTRY 

and  crimson,  reaching  far  above  your  head,  thousands 
upon  tens  of  thousands  of  blossoms  packed  close  to- 
gether, with  no  green  to  mar  the  intensity  of  their  color, 
rounding  out  in  swelling  curves  of  bloom  down  to  the 
turf  below,  not  pausing  a  few  inches  above  it  and  show- 
ing bare  stems  or  trunk,  but  spreading  over  the  velvet, 
and  trailing  out  like  the  rich  robes  of  an  empress. 
Stand  on  one  side  and  look  across  the  lawn;  it  is  like  a 
mad  artist's  dream  of  hues ;  it  is  like  the  Arabian  nights ; 
eyes  that  have  never  had  color  enough  find  here  a  full 
feast,  and  go  away  satisfied  at  last.  And  with  all  their 
gorgeousness,  the  hues  are  delicately  mingled ;  the  magic 
efifect  is  produced  not  by  unbroken  banks  of  crude  reds, 
but  by  blended  shades,  like  the  rich  Oriental  patterns  of 
India  shawls,  which  the  European  designers,  with  all 
their  efforts,  can  never  imitate." 

Another  remarkable  garden,  though  not  the  equal  of 
Magnolia,  is  at  Middleton  Place,  not  many  miles  away, 
and  still  another  is  at  the  pleasant  winter  resort  town  of 
Summerville,  something  more  than  twenty  miles  above 
Charleston.  The  latter,  called  the  Pinehurst  Tea  Gar- 
den, is  said  to  be  the  only  tea  garden  in  the  United 
States.  It  is  asserted  that  the  teas  produced  here  are 
better  than  those  of  China  and  Japan,  and  are  equal  to 
those  of  India.  The  Government  is  cooperating  with 
the  owners  of  this  garden  with  a  view  to  introducing  tea 
planting  in  the  country  in  a  large  way. 

The  finest  grade  of  tea  raised  here  is  known  as  ''Shel- 
ter Tea,"  and  is  sold  only  at  the  gardens,  the  price  being 

343 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

five  dollars  per  pound.  It  is  a  tea  of  the  Assam  species 
grown  under  shelters  of  wire  mesh  and  pine  straw. 
This  type  of  tea  is  known  in  Japan,  where  it  originated, 
as  "sugar  tea,"  because,  owing  to  the  fact  that  it  is  grown 
in  the  shade,  the  sap  of  the  bush,  which  is  of  starchy 
cjuality,  is  turned  chemically  into  sugar,  giving  the  leaf 
an  exceedingly  delicate  flavor. 

From  the  superintendent  in  charge  of  the  gardens  T 
learned  something  of  the  bare  facts  of  the  tea  growing 
industry.  I  had  always  been  under  the  impression  that 
the  name  "pekoe"  referred  to  a  certain  type  of  tea,  but 
he  told  me  that  the  word  is  Chinese  for  "eyelash,"  and 
came  to  l)e  used  because  the  tip  leaves  of  tea  bushes, 
when  rolled  and  dried,  resemble  eyelashes.  These 
leaves — "pekoe  tips" — make  the  most  choice  tea.  The 
second  leaves  make  the  tea  called  "orange  pekoe,"  while 
the  third  leaves  produce  a  grade  of  tea  called  simply 
"pekoe."  In  China  it  is  customary  to  send  three  groups 
of  children,  successively,  to  ])ick  the  leaves,  the  first 
group  picking  only  the  tips,  the  second  group  the  second 
leaves,  and  the  third  group  the  plain  pekoe  leaves.  At 
the  Pinehurst  Tea  Gardens  the  picking  is  done  by  col- 
ored children,  ranging  from  eight  to  fifteen  years  of  age. 
All  the  leaves  are  picked  together  and  are  later  sepa- 
rated by  machinery. 

Summerville  itself  seems  a  lovely  lazy  town.  It  is 
the  kind  of  place  to  which  I  should  like  to  retire  in  the 
winter  if  I  had  a  book  to  write.  One  could  be  very  com- 
fortable, and  there  would  be  no  radical  distractions — 

344 


V/,/v\  ti\X  6A 


'  t 

The  interior  is  the  oldest  looking  thing  in  the  United  States— Goose  Creek  Church 


*'GULLA"  AND  THE  BACK  COUNTRY 

unless  one  chanced  to  see  the  Most  Beautiful  Girl  in  the 
World,  who  has  been  known  to  spend  winters  at  that 
place. 

On  the  way  from  Charleston  to  Summerville,  if  you 
go  by  motor,  you  pass  The  Oaks,  an  estate  with  a  new 
colonial  house  standing  where  an  ancient  mansion  used 
to  stand.  A  long  avenue  bordered  by  enormous  live- 
oaks,  leading  to  this  house,  gives  the  place  its  name,  and 
affords  a  truly  noble  approach.  Here,  in  Revolutionary 
times,  Marion,  "the  Swamp  Fox,"  used  to  camp. 

Not  far  distant  from  the  old  gate  at  The  Oaks  is  Goose 
Creek  Church — the  most  interesting  church  I  have  ever 
seen.  The  Parish  of  St.  James,  Goose  Creek,  was  es- 
tablished by  act  of  the  Assembly,  November  30,  1706, 
and  the  present  church,  a  brick  building  of  crudely  sim- 
ple architecture,  was  built  about  1713.  The  interior  of 
the  church,  though  in  good  condition,  is  the  oldest  look- 
ing thing,  I  think,  in  the  United  States.  The  memorial 
tablets  in  the  walls,  with  their  foreign  names  and  antique 
lettering,  the  curious  old  box  pews,  the  odd  little  gallery 
at  the  back,  the  tall  pulpit,  with  its  winding  stair,  above 
all  the  Royal  Arms  of  Great  Britain  done  in  relief  on 
the  chancel  wall  and  brilliantly  colored — all  these  make 
Goose  Creek  Church  more  like  some  little  Norman 
church  in  England,  than  like  anything  one  might  reason- 
ably expect  to  find  on  this  side  of  the  world. 

Countless  items  of  curious  interest  hang  about  the 
church  and  parish.  Michaux.  the  French  botanist  who 
came  to  this  country  in  1786.  lived  for  a  time  at  Goose 

345 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Creek.  He  brought  with  him  ihc  first  four  camelhas 
seen  in  the  United  States,  planting  them  at  Middleton 
Place  above  Drayton  Hall,  where,  I  believe,  they  still 
stand,  having  reached  a  great  height.  A  British  officer 
known  as  Mad  Archy  Campbell  was  married  at  Goose 
Creek  Church  during  the  Revolution,  under  romantic 
circumstances.  Miss  Paulina  Phelps,  a  young  lady  of 
the  parish,  was  a  great  beauty  and  a  great  coquette, 
who  amused  herself  alike  with  American  and  British 
officers.  Campbell  met  and  fell  desperately  in  love  with 
her,  and  it  is  said  that  she  encouraged  him,  though  with- 
out serious  intent.  One  day  he  induced  her  to  go  horse- 
back-riding with  him  and  on  the  ride  made  love  to  her 
so  vehemently  that  she  was  "intimidated  into  accei)ting 
him."  They  rode  to  the  rectory,  and  Campbell,  meeting 
the  rector,  demanded  that  he  should  marry  them  at  once. 
The  dominie  replied  that  he  would  do  so  "with  the  con- 
sent of  the  young  lady  and  her  mother,"  but  Campbell 
proposed  to  await  no  such  formalities.  Drawing  his 
pistol  he  gave  the  minister  the  choice  of  performing  the 
ceremony  then  and  there,  or  perishing.  This  argument 
proved  conclusive  and  the  two  were  promptly  wed. 

\\'hen  Goose  Creek  was  within  the  British  lines  it  is 
said  that  the  minister  proceeded,  upon  one  occasion,  to 
utter  the  prayer  for  the  King  of  England,  in  the  Litany. 
At  the  end  of  the  prayer  there  were  no  "Amens,"  the 
congregation  having  been  composed  almost  entirely,  as 
the  story  goes,  of  believers  in  American  independence. 
Into  the  awkward  pause  after  the  prayer  one  voice  from 

346 


"GULLA"  AND  THE  BACK  COUNTRY 

the  congregation  was  at  last  injected.  It  was  the  voice 
of  old  Ralph  Izard,  saying  heartily,  not  "Amen,"  but 
''Good  Lord,  deliver  us!"  There  is  a  tablet  in  the 
church  to  the  memory  of  this  worthy. 

The  story  is  told,  also,  of  an  old  gentleman,  a  member 
of  the  congregation  in  Revolutionary  times,  who  in- 
formed the  minister  that  if  he  again  read  the  prayer  for 
the  King  he  would  throw  his  prayer-book  at  his  head. 
The  minister  took  this  for  a  jest,  but  when  he  began  to 
read  the  prayer  on  the  following  Sunday,  he  found  that 
it  was  not,  for  sure  enough  the  prayer-book  came 
hurtling  through  the  air.  Prayer-books  were  heavier 
then  than  they  are  now,  and  it  is  said  that  as  a  result  of 
this  episode,  the  minister  refused  to  hold  service  there- 
after. 

The  church  is  not  now  used  regularly,  an  occasional 
memorial  service  only  being  held  there. 

Charleston  is  a  hard  place  to  leave.  Wherever  one 
may  be  going  from  there,  the  change  is  likely  to  be 
for  the  worse.  Nevertheless,  it  is  impossible  to  stay 
forever ;  so  at  last  you  muster  up  your  resignation  and 
your  resources,  buy  tickets,  and  reluctantly  prepare  to 
leave.  If  you  depart  as  we  did,  you  go  by  rail,  driving 
to  the  station  in  the  venerable  bus  of  the  Charleston 
Transfer  Company — a  conveyance  which,  one  judges, 
may  be  coeval  with  the  city's  oldest  mansions.  Tittle  as 
we  wished  to  leave  Charleston  we  did  not  wish  to  defer 
our  departure  through  any  such  banality  as  the  unneces- 

347 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

sary  missing  of  a  train.  Therefore  as  we  waited  for 
the  bus,  on  the  night  of  leaving,  and  as  train  time  drew 
nearer  and  nearer,  with  no  sign  of  the  lumbering  old 
vehicle,  we  became  somewhat  concerned. 

When  the  bus  did  come  at  last  there  was  little  time 
to  spare;  nevertheless  the  conductor,  an  easygoing  man 
of  great  volubility,  consumed  some  precious  minutes  in 
gossiping  with  the  hotel  porter,  and  then  with  arranging 
and  rearranging  the  baggage  on  the  roof  of  the  bus. 
His  manner  was  that  of  an  amateur  bus  conductor,  try- 
ing a  new  experiment.  After  watching  his  perform- 
ances for  a  time,  looking  occasionally  at  my  watch,  by 
way  of  giving  him  a  hint,  I  broke  out  into  expostulation 
at  the  unnecessary  delay. 

''What 's  the  matter?"  asked  the  man  in  a  gentle,  al- 
most grieved  tone. 

"There  's  very  little  time !"  I  returned.  "We  don't 
wish  to  miss  the  train." 

"Oh,  all  right,"  said  the  bus  conductor,  making  more 
haste,  as  though  the  information  I  had  given  him  put  a 
different  face  on  matters  generally. 

Presently  we  started.  After  a  time  he  collected  our 
fares.  I  have  forgotten  w^hether  the  amount  w^as  twen- 
ty-five or  fifty  cents.  At  all  events,  as  he  took  the  money 
from  my  hand  he  said  to  me  reassuringly : 

"Don't  you  worry,  sir !  If  I  don't  get  you  to  the  train 
I  '11  give  you  this  money  back.     That 's  fair,  ain't  it  ?" 


348 


CHAPTER  XXXII 
OUT  OF  THE  PAST 

BY  no  means  all  the  leading  citizens  of  Atlanta 
were  in  a  frame  of  mind  to  welcome  General 
Sherman  when,  ten  or  a  dozen  years  after  the 
Civil  War,  he  revisited  the  city.  Captain  Evan  P. 
Howell,  a  former  Confederate  officer,  then  publisher  of 
the  Atlanta  "Constitution,"  was,  however,  not  one  of 
the  Atlantans  who  ignored  the  general's  visit.  Taking 
his  young  son,  Clark,  he  called  upon  the  general  at  the 
old  Kimball  House  (later  destroyed  by  fire),  and  had 
an  interesting  talk  with  him.  Clark  Howell,  who  has 
since  succeeded  his  father  as  publisher  of  the  "Consti- 
tution," was  born  while  the  latter  was  fighting  at  Chick- 
amauga,  and  was  consequently  old  enough,  at  the  time 
of  the  call  on  Sherman,  to  remember  much  of  what  was 
said.  He  heard  the  general  tell  Captain  Howell  why 
he  had  made  such  a  point  of  taking  Atlanta,  and  as  Sher- 
man's military  reasons  for  desiring  possession  of  the 
Georgia  city  explain,  to  a  large  extent,  Atlanta's  subse- 
quent development,  I  shall  quote  them  as  Clark  Howell 
gave  them  to  me. 

First,  however,  it  is  perhaps  worth  while  to  remind 
the  reader  of  the  bare  circumstances  preceding  the  fall 

349 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURKS 

of  Atlanta.  After  the  defeat  of  the  Confederate  forces 
at  Chattanooga,  General  Joseph  E.  Johnston's  army  fell 
back  slowly  on  Atlanta,  much  as  the  French  fell  back  on 
Paris  at  the  beginning-  of  the  European  War,  shortening 
their  own  lines  of  communication  while  those  of  the  ad- 
vancing Germans  were  being  continually  attenuated. 
As  the  Germans  kept  after  the  French,  Sherman  kept 
after  Johnston;  and  as  Joffre  was  beginning  to  be  criti- 
cized for  failing  to  make  a  stand  against  the  enemy,  so 
was  Johnston  criticized  as  he  continued  to  retire  without 
giving  battle.  One  of  the  chief  differences  between 
Joffre's  retirement  and  Johnston's  lies,  however,  in  the 
length  of  time  consumed ;  for  whereas  the  French  retreat 
on  Paris  covered  a  few  days  only,  the  Confederate  re- 
treat on  Atlanta  covered  weeks  and  months,  giving  the 
Confederate  Government  time  to  become  impatient  w^ith 
Johnston  and  finally  to  remove  him  from  command  be- 
fore the  time  arrived  when,  in  his  judgment,  the  stand 
against  Sherman  should  be  made.  Nor  is  it  inconceiv- 
able that,  had  the  French  retreat  lasted  as  long  as  John- 
ston's, Joffre  would  have  been  removed  and  would  have 
lost  the  opportunity  to  justify  his  Fabian  policy,  as  he 
did  so  gloriously  at  the  Battle  of  the  Marne. 

Though  Atlanta  was,  at  the  time  of  the  war,  a  city 
of  less  than  10,000  inhabitants,  it  was  the  chief  base  of 
supply  for  men  and  munitions  in  the  Far  South. 

''When  my  father  asked  him  w-hy  all  his  effort  and 
powder  had  been  centered,  after  Chickamauga,  on  the 
capture  of  Atlanta,"  said  Clark  Howell,  ''I  remember 

350 


OUT  OF  THE  PAST 

that  General  Sherman  extended  one  hand  with  the  fin- 
gers spread  apart,  explaining  the  strategic  situation  by 
imagining  Atlanta  as  occupying  a  position  where  the 
wrist  joins  the  hand,  while  the  thumb  and  fingers  rep- 
resented, successively,  New  Orleans,  Mobile,  Savannah, 
Charleston,  and  Norfolk.  'If  I  held  Atlanta,'  he  said, 
'I  was  only  one  day's  journey  from  these  chief  cities  of 
the  South.'  " 

In  spite,  therefore,  of  the  assertion,  which  I  have 
heard  made,  that  the  prosperity  of  Atlanta  is  "founded 
on  insurance  premiums,  coca-cola,  and  hot  air,"  it  seems 
to  me  that  it  is  founded  on  something  very  much  more 
solid.  Nor  do  I  refer  to  the  layer  of  granite  which  un- 
derlies the  city.  The  prosperity  of  Atlanta  is  based 
upon  the  very  feature  which  made  its  capture  seem  to 
Sherman  so  desirable :  its  strategic  position  as  a  central 
point  in  the  Far  South. 

Neither  in  Atlanta  nor  in  any  other  part  of  Georgia 
is  General  Sherman  remembered  with  a  feeling  that 
can  properly  be  described  as  affectionate,  though  it 
may  be  added  that  Atlanta  has  good  reason  for  remem- 
bering him  warmly.  The  burning  of  Atlanta  by  Sher- 
man did  not,  however,  prove  an  unalloyed  disaster,  for 
the  war  came  to  an  end  soon  after,  and  the  rebuilding 
of  the  city  supplied  work  for  thousands  of  former  Con- 
federate soldiers,  and  also  drew  to  Atlanta  many  of  the 
strong  men  who  played  leading  parts  in  the  subsequent 
commercial  upbuilding  of  the  place :  such  men  as  the  late 
General  Alfred  Austell,  Captain  James  W.  English,  and 

351 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

the  three  Inman  brothers,  Samuel,  John,  and  Hugh — 
to  mention  but  a  few  names.  The  First  National  Bank, 
established  by  General  Austell,  is,  I  believe,  Atlanta's 
largest  bank  to-day,  and  was  literally  the  first  national 
bank  established  in  Georgia,  if  not  in  the  whole  South, 
after  the  war. 

Woodrow  Wilson  was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  Atlanta, 
and,  if  I  mistake  not,  practised  law  in  an  office  not  far 
from  that  meeting  place  of  highways  called  Five  Points. 
Here,  at  Five  Points,  two  important  trails  crossed,  long 
before  there  was  any  Atlanta :  the  north-and-south  trail 
between  Savannah  and  Ross's  Landing,  and  the  east- 
and-west  trail,  which  followed  the  old  Indian  trails  be- 
tween Charleston  and  New  Orleans.  When  people  from 
this  part  of  the  country  wished  to  go  to  Ohio,  Indiana, 
or  the  Mississippi  Valley,  they  would  take  the  old  north- 
and-south  trail  to  Ross's  Landing,  follow  the  Tennessee 
River  to  where  it  empties  into  the  Ohio,  near  Paducah, 
Kentucky,  and  proceed  thence  to  Mississippi. 

In  the  thirties,  Atlanta — or  rather  the  site  of  Atlanta, 
for  the  city  was  not  founded  until  1840 — was  on  the  bor- 
der of  white  civilization  in  northern  Georgia,  all  the 
country  to  the  north  of  the  Chattahoochee  River,  which 
flows  a  few  miles  distant  from  the  city,  having  belonged 
to  the  Cherokee  Indians,  who  had  been  moved  there 
from  Florida.  Even  in  those  times  the  Cherokees  were 
civilized,  as  Indians  go,  for  they  lived  in  huts  and  prac- 
tised agriculture.  Of  course,  however,  their  civiliza- 
tion was  not  comparable  with  that  of  the  white  man.     If 

352 


OUT  OF  THE  PAST 

they  had  been  as  civilized  as  he,  they  might  have  driven 
him  out  of  Florida,  instead  of  having  been  themselves 
driven  out,  and  they  might  have  driven  him  out  of 
Georgia,  too,  instead  of  having  been  pushed  on,  as  they 
were,  to  the  Indian  Territory — eighteen  thousand  of 
them,  under  military  supervision,  on  boats  from  Ross's 
Landing — leaving  the  beautiful  white  Cherokee  rose, 
which  grows  wild  and  in  great  profusion,  in  the  spring, 
as  almost  their  sole  memorial  on  Georgia  soil. 

As  Georgia  became  settled  the  trails  developed  into 
wagon  and  stage  routes,  and  later  they  were  followed, 
approximately,  by  the  railroads.  After  three  railroads 
had  reached  Atlanta,  the  State  of  Georgia  engaged  in 
what  may  have  been  the  first  adventure,  in  this  country, 
along  the  lines  of  government-owned  railroads :  namely, 
the  building  of  the  Western  &  Atlantic,  from  Atlanta  to 
Chattanooga,  to  form  a  link  between  the  lower  South 
and  the  rapidly  developing  West.  This  road  was  built 
in  the  forties,  and  it  was  along  its  line  that  Johnston  re- 
treated before  Sherman,  from  Chattanooga  to  Atlanta. 
Though  it  is  now  leased  and  operated  by  the  Nashville, 
Chattanooga  &  St.  Louis  Railroad  Company,  it  is  still 
owned  by  the  State  of  Georgia.  The  lease,  however,  ex- 
pires soon,  and  (an  interesting  fact  in  view  of  the  con- 
tinued agitation  in  other  parts  of  the  country  for  govern- 
ment ownership  of  corporations)  there  is  a  strong  senti- 
ment in  Georgia  in  favor  of  selling  the  railroad ;  for  it  is 
estimated  that,  at  a  fair  price,  it  would  yield  a  sum  suffi- 
cient not  only  to  wipe  out  the  entire  bonded  indebtedness 

353 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

of  the  State  ($7,000,000),  but  tu  leave  ten  ur  twelve  mil- 
lions clear  in  the  State  treasury. 

At  Roswell,  Georgia,  a  sleepy  little  hamlet  in  the 
hills,  not  many  miles  from  Atlanta,  stands  Bulloch  Hall, 
where  Martha  ("Mittie")  Bulloch,  later  Mrs.  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  mother  of  the  President,  was  born.  Roswell 
was  originally  settled,  long  ago,  by  people  from  Savan- 
nah, Daricn,  and  other  towns  of  the  flat,  hot  country 
near  the  coast,  who  drove  there  in  their  carriages  and 
remained  during  the  summer.  After  a  time,  however, 
three  prosperous  families — the  Bullochs,  Dunwoodys, 
and  Barrington  Kings — made  their  permanent  homes  at 
Roswell. 

Bulloch  Hall  is  one  of  those  old  white  southern  co- 
lonial houses  the  whole  front  of  which  consists  of  a 
great  pillared  portico,  in  the  Greek  style,  giving  a  look 
of  dignity  and  hospitality.  Almost  all  such  houses  are, 
as  they  should  be,  surrounded  by  fine  old  trees;  those  at 
Bulloch  Hall  are  especially  fine:  tall  cedars,  ancient 
white  oaks,  giant  osage  oranges,  and  a  pair  of  holly 
trees,  one  at  either  side  of  the  walk  near  the  front  door. 

Theodore  Roosevelt,  Sr.,  and  Mittie  Bulloch  met  here 
when  they  were  respectively  seventeen  and  fifteen  years 
of  age.  A  half  sister  of  Miss  Mittie  had  married  a 
relative  of  the  Roosevelts  and  gone  from  Roswell  to  live 
in  Philadelphia,  and  it  was  while  visiting  at  her  home 
that  young  Roosevelt,  hearing  a  great  deal  of  the  South, 
conceived  a  desire  to  go  there.     This  resulted  in  his 

354 


OUT  OF  THE  PAST 

first  visit  to  Bulloch  Hall,  and  his  meeting  with  Mittie 
Bulloch.  On  his  return  to  the  North  he  was  sent 
abroad,  but  two  or  three  years  later  when  he  went  again 
to  visit  his  relatives  in  Philadelphia,  Miss  Mittie  was 
also  a  guest  at  their  house,  and  this  time  the  two  became 
engaged. 

Save  that  the  Bulloch  furniture  is  no  longer  there,  the 
interior  of  the  old  Georgia  residence  stands  practically 
as  it  was  when  Theodore  Roosevelt  and  Mittie  Bulloch 
were  maried  in  the  dining  room.  Through  the  center, 
from  front  to  back,  runs  a  wide  hall,  on  either  side  of 
which  is  a  pair  of  spacious  square  rooms,  each  with  a 
fireplace,  each  with  large  windows  looking  out  over  the 
beautiful  hilly  country  which  spreads  all  about.  It 
is  a  lovely  house  in  a  lovely  setting,  and,  though  the  Bul- 
lochs  reside  there  no  longer,  Miss  Mittie  Bulloch  is  not 
forgotten  in  Roswell,  for  one  of  her  bridesmaids,  Miss 
Evelyn  King,  now  Mrs.  Baker,  still  resides  in  Barring- 
ton  Hall,  not  far  distant  from  the  old  Bulloch  home- 
stead. 


555 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 
ALIVE  ATLANTA 

AN  army  ofiicer,  a  man  of  broad  sympathies, 
familiar  with  the  whole  United  States,  warned 
me  before  I  went  south  that  1  must  not  judge 
the  South  by  northern  standards. 

"On  the  side  of  picturesqueness  and  charm,"  he  said, 
"the  South  can  more  than  hold  its  own  against  the  rest 
of  the  country;  likewise  on  the  side  of  office-holding  and 
flowery  oratory;  but  you  must  not  expect  southern  cities 
to  have  the  energy  you  are  accustomed  to  in  the  North." 

As  to  the  picturesqueness,  charm,  officeholding,  and 
oratory,  I  found  his  judgments  substantially  correct, 
but  though  I  did  perceive  a  certain  lack  of  energy  in 
some  small  cities,  I  should  not  call  that  trait  a  leading 
one  in  the  larger  southern  cities  to-day.  On  the  con- 
trary, I  was  impressed,  in  almost  every  large  center  that 
I  visited,  with  the  fact  that,  in  the  South  more,  perhaps, 
than  in  any  other  part  of  the  country,  a  great  awakening 
is  in  progress.  The  dormant  period  of  the  South  is 
past,  and  all  manner  of  developments  are  everywhere  in 
progress.  Nor  do  I  know  of  any  city  which  better  ex- 
emplifies southern  growth  and  progress  than  vVtlanta. 

My  Baedeker,  dated  1909,  opens  its  description  of  At- 

356 


ALIVE  ATLANTA 

lanta  with  the  statement  that  the  German  consul  there 
is  Dr.  E.  Zoepffel.  I  doubt  it — but  let  us  pass  over  that. 
It  describes  Atlanta  as  "a  prosperous  commercial  and 
industrial  city  and  an  important  railroad  center,  well 
situated,  1030-1175  feet  above  the  sea,  enjoying  a 
healthy  and  bracing  climate."  That  is  true.  Atlanta 
is,  if  I  mistake  not,  the  highest  important  city  east  of 
Denver,  and  I  believe  her  climate  is  in  part  responsible 
for  her  energy,  as  it  is  also  for  the  fact  that  her  vegeta- 
tion is  more  like  that  of  a  northern  than  a  southern 
city,  elms  and  maples  rather  than  magnolias,  being  the 
trees  of  the  Atlanta  streets. 

Baedeker  gave  Atlanta  about  90,000  inhabitants  in 
1909,  but  the  census  of  191  o  jumped  her  up  to  more 
than  150,000,  while  the  estimate  of  1917  in  the  ''World 
Almanac"  credits  her  with  about  180,000.  Moreover, 
in  the  almanac's  list  of  the  largest  cities  of  the  earth, 
Atlanta  comes  twentieth  from  the  top.  It  is  my  duty, 
perhaps,  to  add  that  the  list  is  arranged  alphabetically 
— which  reminds  me  that  some  cynic  has  suggested  that 
there  may  have  been  an  alphabetical  arrangement  of 
names,  also,  in  the  celebrated  list  in  which  Abou  Ben 
Adhem's  "name  led  all  the  rest."  Nevertheless,  it  may 
be  stated  that,  according  to  the  almanac's  population 
figures,  Atlanta  is  larger  than  the  much  more  ancient 
city  of  Athens  (I  refer  to  Athens,  Greece;  not  Athens, 
Georgia),  as  well  as  such  considerable  cities  as  Bari, 
Bochum,  Graz,  Kokand,  and  Omsk.  Atlanta  is,  in 
short,  a  city  of  about  the  size  of  Goteborg,  and  if  she  has 

357 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

not  yet  achieved  the  dimensions  of  Baku,  Belem,  Chang- 
sha,  Tashkent,  or  West  Ham,  she  is  growing  rapidly, 
and  may  some  day  surpass  them  all ;  yes,  and  even  that 
thriving  metropolis,  Yekatcrinoslav. 

As  to  the  "healthy  and  bracing  climate,"  I  know  that 
Atlanta  is  cool  and  lovely  in  the  spring,  and  I  am  told 
that  her  prosperous  families  do  not  make  it  a  practice 
to  absent  themselves  from  home  during  the  summer, 
according  to  the  custom  of  the  corresponding  class  in 
many  other  cities,  northern  as  well  as  southern. 

Atlanta  is  one  of  the  few  large  inland  cities  located 
neither  upon  a  river  nor  a  lake.  When  the  city  was 
founded,  the  customs  of  life  in  Georgia  were  such  that 
no  one  ever  dreamed  that  the  State  might  some  day  go 
dry.  Having  plenty  of  other  things  to  drink,  the  early 
settlers  gave  no  thought  to  water.  But,  as  time  went  on, 
and  prohibition  became  a  more  and  more  important 
issue,  the  citizens  of  Atlanta  began  to  perceive  that,  in 
emergency,  the  Chattahoochee  River  might,  after  all, 
have  its  uses.  Water  was,  consequently,  piped  from  the 
river  to  the  city,  and  is  now  generally — albeit  in  some 
quarters  mournfully — used.  Though  I  am  informed  by 
an  expert  in  Indian  languages  that  the  Cherokee  word 
''chattahoochee"  is  short  for  "muddy,"  the  water  is  fil- 
tered before  it  reaches  the  city  pipes,  and  is  thoroughly 
palatable,  whether  taken  plain  or  mixed. 

Well-off  though  Atlanta  is,  she  would  esteem  herself 
better  off,  in  a  material  sense  at  least,  had  she  a  naviga- 
ble stream;  for  her  chief  industrial  drawback  consists 

358 


ALIVE  ATLANTA 

in  railroad  freight  rates  unmodified  by  water  competi- 
tion. She  has,  to  be  sure,  a  number  of  factories,  includ- 
ing a  Ford  automobile  plant,  but  she  has  not  so  many 
factories  as  her  strategic  position,  stated  by  General 
Sherman,  would  seem  to  justify,  or  as  her  own  industrial 
ambitions  cause  her  to  desire.  For  does  not  every  pro- 
gressive American  city  yearn  to  bristle  with  factory 
chimneys,  even  as  a  summer  resort  folder  bristles  with 
exclamation  points?     And  is  not  soot  a  measure  of 


success 


? 


Atlanta's  line  of  business  is  largely  office  business; 
many  great  corporations  have  their  headquarters  or 
their  general  southern  branches  in  the  city;  one  of  the 
twelve  Federal  Reserve  Banks  is  there,  and  there  are 
many  strong  banks.  Indeed,  I  suppose  Atlanta  has  more 
bankers,  in  proportion  to  her  population,  than  any  other 
city  in  the  United  States.  Some  of  these  bankers  are 
active  citizens  and  permanent  residents  of  the  city; 
others  have  given  up  banking  for  the  time  being  and 
are  in  temporary  residence  at  the  Federal  Penitentiary. 

The  character  of  commerce  carried  on,  naturally 
brings  to  Atlanta  large  numbers  of  prosperous  and  able 
men — corporation  officials,  branch  managers,  manufac- 
turers' agents,  and  the  like — who,  with  their  families, 
give  Atlanta  a  somewhat  individual  social  flavor.  This 
class  of  population  also  accounts  for  the  fact  that  the 
enterprismgness  so  characteristic  of  Atlanta  is  not  the 
mere  rough,  ebullient  spirit  of  "go  to  it!"  to  be  found 
in  so  many  hustling  cities  of  the  Middle  West  and  West, 

359 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

but  is,  oftentimes,  an  informed  and  cultivated  kind 
of  enterprisingncss,  which  causes  Atlanta  not  only  to 
"do  things,"  but  to  do  things  showing  vision,  and,  fur- 
thermore, to  do  them  with  an  "air." 

This  is  illustrated  in  various  ways.  It  is  shown,  for 
example,  in  Atlanta's  principal  hotels,  which  are  ntjt 
small-town  hotels,  or  good-enough  hotels,  but  would  do 
credit  to  any  city,  however  great.  The  office  buildings 
are  city  office  buildings,  and  in  the  downtown  section 
they  are  sufliciently  numerous  to  look  very  much  at 
home,  instead  of  appearing  a  little  bit  exotic,  self-con- 
scious, and  lonesome,  as  new  skyscrapers  do  in  so  many 
cities  of  Atlanta's  size.  Even  the  smoke  with  which 
the  skyscrapers  are  streaked  is  city  smoke.  Chicago 
herself  could  hardly  produce  smoke  of  more  metropoli- 
tan texture — certainly  not  on  the  Lake  Front,  where  the 
Illinois  Central  trains  send  up  their  black  clouds;  for  At- 
lanta's downtown  smoke,  like  Chicago's,  comes  in  large 
part  from  railroads  piercing  the  heart  of  the  city. 
Where  downtown  business  streets  cross  the  railroad 
tracks,  the  latter  are  depressed,  the  highways  passing 
above  on  steel  bridges  resembling  the  bridges  over  the 
Chicago  River.  The  railroad's  right  of  way  is,  further- 
more, just  about  as  wide  as  the  Chicago  River,  and  rows 
of  smoke-stained  brick  buildings  turn  their  backs  upon 
it,  precisely  as  similar  buildings  turn  theirs  upon  Chi- 
cago's busy,  narrow  stream.  I  wonder  if  all  travelers, 
familiar  with  Chicago,  are  so  persistently  reminded  of 
that  portion  of  the  city  which  is  near  the  river,  as  I  was 

360 


ALIVE  ATLANTA 

by  that  portion  of  Atlanta  abutting  on  the  tracks  by 
which  the  Seaboard  Air  Line  enters  the  city. 

Generally  speaking,  railroads  in  the  South  have  not 
been  so  prosperous  as  leading  roads  in  the  North,  and 
with  the  exception  of  the  most  important  through  trains, 
their  passenger  equipment  is,  therefore,  not  so  good. 
The  Seaboard  Air  Line,  however,  runs  an  all-steel  train 
between  Atlanta  and  Birmingham  which,  in  point  of 
equipment,  may  be  compared  with  the  best  limited  trains 
anywhere.  The  last  car  in  this  train,  instead  of  being 
part  sleeping  car  and  part  observation  car,  is  a  com- 
bination dining  and  observation  car — a  very  pleasant 
arrangement,  for  men  are  allowed  to  smoke  in  the  obser- 
vation end  after  dinner.  This  is,  to  my  mind,  an  im- 
provement over  the  practice  of  most  railroads,  which 
obliges  men  who  wish  to  smoke  to  leave  the  ladies  with 
whom  they  may  be  traveling.  All  Seaboard  dining  cars 
offer,  aside  from  regular  a  la  carte  service,  a  sixty-cent 
dinner  known  as  the  "Blue  Plate  Special."  This 
dinner  has  many  advantages  over  the  usual  dining- 
car  repast.  In  the  first  place,  though  it  does  not 
comprise  bread  and  butter,  coffee  or  tea,  or  dessert,  it 
provides  an  ample  supply  of  meat  and  vegetables  at  a 
moderate  price.  In  the  second  place,  though  served  at 
a  fixed  price,  it  bears  no  resemblance  to  the  old-style 
dining  car  table  d'hote,  but,  upon  the  contrary,  looks 
and  tastes  like  food.  The  food,  furthermore,  instead 
of  representing  a  great  variety  of  viands  served  in  mi- 
croscopic helpings  on  innumerable  platters  and  "side 

361 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

dishes,"  comes  on  one  great  plate,  with  recesses  for  vege- 
tables. The  '*P>lue  Plate  Special"  furnishes,  in  short, 
the  chief  items  in  a  "good  home  meal." 

This  is,  perhaps,  as  convenient  a  place  as  any  in  which 
to  speak  of  certain  i)()inls  concerning  various  railroads  in 
the  South.  The  Central  of  Georgia  Railway,  running 
between  Atlanta  and  Savannah,  instead  of  operating 
Pullmans,  has  its  own  sleeping  cars.  This  is  the  only 
railroad  I  know  of  in  the  country  on  which  the  tenant 
of  a  lower  berth,  below  an  unoccupied  upper,  may  have 
the  upper  closed  without  paying  for  it.  One  likes  the 
Central  of  Georgia  for  this  humane  dispensation.  The 
locomotives  of  the  \\'estern  &  Atlantic  carry  as  a  dis- 
tinguishing mark  a  red  band  at  the  top  of  the  smoke- 
stack. The  Southern  Railway  assigns  engineers  to  in- 
dividual engines,  instead  of  "pooling  power,"  as  is  the 
practice,  I  believe,  on  many  railroads.  Because  of  this, 
engineers  on  the  Southern  regard  the  locomotives  to 
which  they  arc  regularly  assigned,  as  their  personal 
property,  and  exercise  their  individual  taste  in  embel- 
lishing them.  Brass  bands,  brass  ilagstafifs,  brass  eagles 
over  the  headlight,  and  similar  adornments  are  therefore 
often  seen  on  the  engines  of  this  road,  giving  the  most 
elaborate  of  them  a  carnival  appearance,  by  contrast 
with  the  somber  black  to  which  most  of  us  are  accus- 
tomed, and  hinting  that  not  all  the  individuality  has  been 
unionized  out  of  locomotive  engineers — an  impression 
heightened  by  the  Southern  Railway's  further  pleasant 

362 


ALIVE  ATLANTA 

custom  of  painting-  the  names  of  its  older  and  more 
expert  engineers  upon  the  cabs  of  their  locomotives. 

Some  cities  are  like  lumbering  old  farm  horses,  plug- 
ging along  a  dusty  country  road.  When  another  horse 
overtakes  them,  if  they  be  not  altogether  wanting  in 
spirit,  they  may  be  encouraged  to  jog  a  little  faster  for 
a  moment,  stimulated  by  example.  If,  besides  being 
stupid,  they  are  mean,  then  they  want  to  kick  or  bite  at 
the  speedier  animal  going  by.  Some  cities  are  like  that, 
too.  If  an  energetic  city  overtakes  them,  they  are  not 
spurred  on  to  emulation,  but  lay  back  their  ears,  so  to 
speak.  Again,  there  are  tough,  sturdy  little  cities  like 
buckskin  ponies.  There  are  skittish  cities  which  seem  to 
have  been  badly  broken.  There  are  old  cities  with  a 
worn-out  kind  of  elegance,  like  that  of  superannuated 
horses  of  good  breed,  hitched  to  an  old-fashioned 
barouche.  There  are  bad,  bucking  cities,  like  Butte, 
Montana.  And  here  and  there  are  cities,  like  Atlanta, 
reminding  one  of  thoroughbred  hunters.  There  is  a 
brave,  sporting  something  in  the  spirit  of  Atlanta  which 
makes  it  rush  courageously  at  big  jumps,  and  clear  them, 
and  land  clean  on  the  other  side,  and  be  off  again. 
Like  a  thoroughbred,  she  loves  the  chase.  She  goes  in 
to  win.  She  does  n't  stop  to  worry  about  whether 
she  can  win  or  not.  She  knows  she  will.  And  as 
the  thoroughbred,  loving  large  and  astonishing  achieve- 
ment, lacks  the  humbler  virtues  of  the  reliable  family  car- 

363 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

riage  horse,  Atlanta,  it  cannot  be  denied,  has  "Ics  dcfaufs 
dc  scs  qualitcs."  For  whereas,  on  the  side  of  dashing 
performance,  Atlanta  held  a  stock  fair  which,  in  one 
year,  surpassed  any  other  held  in  the  South,  and  secured 
the  grand  circuit  of  races,  on  the  other  side  she  is  care- 
less about  hospitals  and  charities;  and  whereas,  on  the 
one  side,  she  has  raised  millions  for  the  building  of  two 
new  universities  (which,  by  the  way,  would  be  nuich 
better  as  one  great  university,  but  cannot  be,  because  of 
sectarian  domination),  on  the  other,  she  is  deficient  as  to 
schools;  and  again,  whereas  .she  is  the  only  secondary 
city  to  have  an  annual  season  of  Metropolitan  grand 
opera  (and  to  make  it  pay!)  she  is  behind  many  other 
cities,  including  her  neighbors,  New  Orleans  and  Savan- 
nah, in  caring  for  the  public  health. 

I  am  by  no  means  sure  that  the  regular  spring  visit  of 
the  Metropolitan  Grand  Opera  Company  may  be  taken 
as  a  sign  that  Atlanta  is  peculiarly  a  music-loving  com- 
munity. Indeed,  I  was  told  by  one  Atlanta  lady,  herself 
a  musician,  that  the  city  did  not  contain  more  than  a 
thousand  persons  of  real  musical  appreciation,  that  a 
number  of  these  could  not  afford  to  attend  the  operatic 
performances,  and  that  opera  week  was,  consequently, 
in  reality  more  an  occasion  of  great  social  festivity  than 
of  devout  homage  to  art. 

"Our  opera  week,"  she  told  me,  "bears  the  same  rela- 
tion to  the  life  of  Atlanta  as  Mardi  Gras  does  to  that  of 
New  Orleans.  It  is  an  advertisement  for  the  city,  and 
an  excuse  for  every  one  to  have  a  good  time.     Every 

364 


ALIVE  ATLANTA 

night  after  the  performance  there  are  suppers  and 
dances,  which  the  opera  stars  attend.  They  always 
seem  to  enjoy  coming  here.  They  act  as  though  they 
were  off  on  a  picnic,  skylarking  about  the  hotel,  snap- 
shotting one  another,  and  playing  all  manner  of  pranks. 
And,  of  course,  while  they  are  here  they  own  the  town. 
Caruso  draws  his  little  caricatures  for  the  Atlanta  girls, 
and  Atlanta  men  have  been  dazzled,  in  successive  sea- 
sons, by  such  gorgeous  beings  as  Geraldine  Farrar, 
Alma  Gluck,  and  Maria  Barrientos — not  only  across  the 
footlights  of  the  auditorium,  mind  you,  but  at  close 
range;  as,  for  instance,  at  dances  at  the  Driving  Club, 
with  Chinese  lanterns  strung  on  the  terrace,  a  full  moon 
above,  and — one  year — with  the  whole  Metropolitan 
Orchestra  playing  dance  music  all  night  long!'' 

Another  lady,  endeavoring  to  picture  to  me  the  strain 
involved  in  the  week's  gaieties,  informed  me  that  when 
it  was  all  over  she  went  for  a  rest  to  New  York,  where 
she  attended  "a  house  party  at  the  Waldorf" ! 

Of  all  Atlanta's  undertakings,  planned  or  accom- 
plished, that  which  most  interested  my  companion  and 
me  was  the  one  for  turning  a  mountain  into  a  sculptured 
monument  to  the  Confederacy. 

Sixteen  miles  to  the  east  of  the  city  the  layer  of  granite 
which  underlies  the  region  stuck  its  back  up,  so  to  speak, 
forming  a  great  smooth  granite  hump,  known  as  Stone 
Mountain.  This  mountain  is  one  of  America's  natural 
wonders.     In  form  it  may  be  compared  with  a  round- 

365 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

backed  fish,  such  as  a  whale  or  porpoise,  lying  on  ils 
belly,  partly  imbedded  in  a  beach,  and  some  conception 
of  its  dimensions  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that 
from  nose  to  tail  it  measures  about  two  miles,  while  the 
center  of  its  back  is  as  high  as  the  W'oolworth  Uuilding 
in  New  York.  Moreover,  there  is  not  a  fissure  in  il ; 
monoliths  a  thousand  feet  long  have  been  quarried  from 
it ;  it  is  as  solid  as  the  Solid  South. 

The  perpendicular  streaks  of  light  and  dark  gray  and 
gray-green,  made  by  the  elements  upon  the  face  of  the 
rock,  coupled  with  the  waterfall-like  curve  of  that  face, 
make  one  think  of  a  sort  of  sublimated  petrified  Niagara 
— a  fancy  enhanced,  on  wind}-  days,  by  the  roar  of  the 
gale-lashed  forest  at  the  mountain's  foot. 

The  idea  of  turning  the  mountain  into  a  Confederate 
memorial  originated  with  Mr.  William  H.  Terrell  of 
Atlanta.  It  was  taken  up  with  inspired  energy  by  Mrs. 
C.  Helen  Plane,  an  Atlanta  lady,  now  eighty-seven  years 
of  age,  who  is  honorary  president  of  the  United  Daugh- 
ters of  the  Confederacy  and  president  of  the  Stone 
Mountain  Memorial  Association.  Mrs.  Plane  presented 
the  memorial  plan  to  Mr.  Samuel  H.  \>nable  of  Venable 
Brothers,  owners  of  the  mountain,  and  Mr.  Venable 
promptly  turned  over  the  whole  face  of  the  mountain  to 
the  Memorial  Association.  The  exact  form  the  me- 
morial was  to  take  had  not  at  that  time  been  developed. 
Gutzon  Borglum  was,  however,  called  in,  and  worked 
out  a  stupendous  idea,  which  he  has  since  been  com- 
missioned to  execute.     On  the  side  of  the  mountain, 

366 


ALIVE  ATLANTA 

about  four  hundred  feet  above  the  ground,  a  roadway  is 
to  be  gouged -out  of  the  granite.  On  this  roadway  will 
be  carved,  in  gigantic  outlines,  a  Confederate  army, 
headed  by  Lee  and  Jackson  on  horseback.  Other  gen- 
erals will  follow,  and  will,  in  turn,  be  followed  by  in- 
fantry, cavalry  and  artillery.  The  leading  groups  will 
be  in  full  relief  and  the  equestrian  figures  will  be  fifty  or 
more  feet  tall.  This  means  that  the  faces  of  the  chief 
figures  will  measure  almost  the  height  of  a  man.  The 
figures  to  the  rear  of  the  long  column  will,  according  to 
present  plans,  be  in  bas-relief,  and  the  whole  procession 
will  cover  a  strip  perhaps  a  mile  long,  a/U  of  it  carved  out 
of  the  solid  mountainside. 

A  considerable  tract  of  forest  land  at  the  foot  of  the 
great  rock  has  already  been  dedicated  as  a  park.  Here, 
concealed  by  the  trees,  at  a  point  below  the  main  group 
of  figures,  a  temple,  with  thirteen  columns  representing 
the  thirteen  Confederate  States,  is  to  be  hewn  out  of  the 
mountain,  to  be  used  as  a  place  for  the  safe-keeping  of 
Confederate  relics  and  archives. 

Two  million  dollars  is  the  sum  spoken  of  to  cover  the 
total  cost,  and  one  of  the  finest  things  about  the  plans 
for  raising  this  money  is  that  contributions  from  the 
entire  country  are  being  accepted,  so  that  not  only  the 
South,  but  the  whole  nation,  may  have  a  share  in  the 
creation  of  a  memorial  to  that  dead  government  which 
the  South  so  poetically  adores,  yet  which  it  would  not 
willingly  resurrect,  and  in  the  realization  of  a  work  re- 
sembling nothing  so  much  as  Kipling's  conception  of  the 

367 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

artist  in  heaven,  who  paints  on  "a  ten-league  canvas, 
with  brushes  of  comet's  hair." 

Until  the  Stone  Mountain  Memorial  is  completed, 
Atlanta's  most  celebrated  monument  will  continue  to  be 
that  of  Jack  Smith.  The  Jack  Smith  monument  stands 
in  Oakland  Cemetery,  not  over  the  grave  of  Jack  Smith, 
but  over  the  grave  that  local  character  intends  some  day 
to  occupy.  Mr.  Smith  is  reputed  to  be  rich.  He  built 
the  downtown  office  building  known  as  "The  House  that 
Jack  Built."  As  befits  the  owner  of  an  office  building, 
he  wears  a  silk  hat,  but  a  certain  democratic  simplicity 
may  be  observed  in  the  rest  of  his  attire,  especially  about 
the  region  of  the  neck,  for  though  he  apparently  believes 
in  the  convention  concerning  the  wearing  of  collars,  he 
has  a  prejudice  against  the  concealing  of  a  portion  of 
the  collar  by  that  useless  and  snobbish  adornment,  the 
necktie.  Each  spring,  1  am  informed,  it  is  his  custom 
to  visit  his  cemetery  lot  and  inspect  the  statue  of  himself 
which  a  commendable  foresight  has  caused  him  to  erect 
over  his  proposed  final  resting  place.  It  is  said  that 
upon  the  occasion  of  last  season's  vernal  visit  he  was 
annoyed  at  finding  his  effigy  cravated  by  a  vine  which 
had  grown  up  and  encircled  the  neck.  This  he  caused 
to  be  removed;  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  when,  at 
last,  his  monument  achieves  its  ultimate  purpose,  those 
who  care  for  the  cemetery  will  see  to  it  that  leafy  ten- 
drils be  not  permitted  to  mount  to  the  marble  collar  of  the 
figure,  to  form  a  necktie,  or  to  obscure  the  nobly  sculp- 
tured collar  button. 

368 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 
GEORGIA  JOURNALISM 

IN  journalism  Atlanta  is  far  in  advance  of  many  cities 
of  her  size,  North  or  South.     The  Atlanta  "Con- 
stitution," founded  nearly  half  a  century  ago,  is  one 
of  the  country's  most  distinguished  newspapers.     The 
''Constitution"  came  into  its  greatest  fame  in  the  early 
eighties,  when  Captain  Evan  P.  Howell— the  same  Cap- 
tain Howell  who  commanded  a  battery  at  the  battle  of 
Peachtree  Creek,  in  the  defense  of  Atlanta,  and  who 
later   called,   with   his   son,    on   General    Sherman,    as 
already   recorded— became   its   editor,   and   Henry  W. 
Grady  its  managing  editor.     Like  William  Allen  White 
and  Walt  Mason  of  the  Emporia  (Kansas)  "Gazette," 
who  work  side  by  side,  admire  each  other,  but  disagree 
on  every  subject  save  that  of  the  infallibility  of  the 
ground  hog  as  a  weather  prophet,  Howell  and  Grady 
worked  side  by  side  and  were  devoted  friends,  while  dis- 
agreeing personally,  and  in  print,  on  prohibition  and 
many  other  subjects.     Grady  would  speak  at  prohibition 
rallies  and,  sometimes  on  the  same  night,  Howell  would 
speak  at  anti-prohibition  rallies.     In  their  speeches  they 
would    attack    each    other.     The    accounts    of    these 

369 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

speeches,  as  well  as  conflicting  articles  written  by  the 
two,  would  always  appear  in  the  ''Constitution." 

Of  the  pair  of  public  monuments  to  individuals  which 
I  remember  having  seen  in  Atlanta,  one  was  the  pleasing 
memorial,  in  Piedmont  Park,  to  Sidney  Lanier  (who  was 
peculiarly  a  Georgia  poet,  having  been  born  in  ]\Iacon,  in 
that  State,  and  having  written  some  of  his  most  beautiful 
lines  under  the  spell  of  Georgia  scenes) ,  and  the  other  the 
statue  of  Henry  W.  Grady,  which  stands  downtown  in 
Marietta  Street. 

The  Grady  monument — one  regrets  to  say  it — is  less 
fortunate  as  a  work  of  art  than  as  a  deserved  symbol  of 
remembrance.  Grady  not  only  ought  to  have  a  monu- 
ment, but  as  one  whose  writings  prove  him  to  have  been 
a  man  of  taste,  he  ought  to  have  a  better  one  than  this 
poor  mid- Victorian  thing,  placed  in  the  middle  of  a  wide, 
busy  street,  with  Fords  parked  all  day  long  alxuit  its  base. 

Says  the  inscription : 

HE  NEVER  SOUGHT  A  PUBLIC  OFFICE. 

WHEN    HE   DIED    HE   WAS   LITERALLY 

LOVING  A  NATION  INTO  PEACE. 

On  another  side  of  the  base  is  chiseled  a  characteristic 
extract  from  one  of  Grady's  speeches.  This  speech  was 
made  in  1899,  in  Boston,  and  one  hopes  that  it  may  have 
been  heard  by  the  late  Charles  Francis  Adams,  who 
labored  in  Massachusetts  for  the  cause  of  intersectional 
harmony,  just  as  Grady  worked  for  it  in  Georgia. 

This  hour  [said  Grady]  litde  needs  the  loyalty  that  is  loyal 
to  one  section  and  yet  holds  the  other  in  enduring  suspicion  and 

370 


GEORGIA  JOURNALISM 

estrangement.  Give  us  the  broad  and  perfect  loyalty  that  loves 
and  trusts  Georgia  alike  with  Massachusetts — that  knows  no 
South,  no  North,  no  East,  no  West;  but  endears  with  equal  and 
patriotic  love  every  foot  of  our  soil,  every  State  in  our  Union. 

Grady  could  not  only  write  and  say  stirring  things ;  he 
could  be  witty.  He  once  spoke  at  a  dinner  of  the  New 
England  Society,  in  New  York,  at  which  General  Sher- 
man was  also  present. 

"Down  in  Georgia,"  he  said,  ''we  think  of  General 
Sherman  as  a  great  general ;  but  it  seems  to  us  he  was  a 
little  careless  with  fire." 

Nor  was  Grady  less  brilliant  as  managing  editor  than 
upon  the  platform.  He  had  the  kind  of  enterprise  which 
made  James  Gordon  Bennett  such  a  dashing  figure  in 
newspaper  life,  and  the  New  York  ''Herald"  such  a  com- 
plete newspaper — the  kind  of  enterprise  that  charters 
special  trains,  and  at  all  hazards  gets  the  story  it 
is  after.  Back  in  the  early  eighties  Grady  was  run- 
ning the  Atlanta  "Constitution"  in  just  that  way.  If  a 
big  story  "broke"  in  any  of  the  territory  around  Atlanta, 
Grady  would  not  wait  upon  train  schedules,  but  would 
hire  an  engine  and  send  his  men  to  the  scene.  Once,  fol- 
lowing a  sensational  murder,  he  learned  that  the  Bir- 
mingham "Age-Herald"  had  a  big  story  dealing  with 
developments  in  the  case.  He  wired  the  "Age-Herald" 
ofifering  a  large  price  for  the  story.  When  his  offer 
was  refused  Grady  knew  that  if  he  could  not  devise  a 
way  to  get  the  story,  Atlanta  would  be  flooded  next  day 
with  "Age-Heralds"  containing  the  "beat"  on  the  "Con- 

371 


AxMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

stitution."  He  at  once  chartered  a  locomotive  and 
rushed  two  reporters  and  four  telegraph  operators  down 
the  line  toward  Birmingham.  At  Aniston,  Alabama, 
the  locomotive  met  the  train  which  was  bringing  "Age- 
Heralds"  to  Atlanta.  A  copy  of  the  paper  was  secured. 
The  "Constitution"  men  then  broke  into  a  telegraph 
office  and  wired  the  whole  story  in  to  their  paper,  with 
the  result  that  the  "Constitution"  was  out  with  it  before 
the  Birmingham  papers  reached  Atlanta. 

Atlanta  was  at  that  time  a  town  of  only  about  40,000 
inhabitants,  but  the  "Constitution,"  in  the  days  of 
Howell  and  Grady,  had  a  circulation  four  times  greater 
than  the  total  population  of  the  city — a  situation  almost 
unheard  of  in  journalism.  Something  of  the  breadth 
of  its  influence  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that  in 
several  counties  in  Texas,  where  the  law  provided  that 
w^hatever  newspaper  had  the  largest  circulation  in  the 
county  should  be  the  county  organ,  the  county  organ 
was  the  Atlanta  "Constitution." 

An  Atlanta  lady  tells  of  having  called  upon  Grady 
to  complain  about  an  article  which  she  did  not  think  the 
"Constitution"  should  have  printed. 

"Why  did  you  put  that  objectionable  article  in  your 
paper?"  she  asked  him. 

"Did  you  read  it?"  he  inquired. 

"Yes,' I  did." 

"Then,"  said  Grady,  "that 's  why  I  put  it  there." 

Grady  and  Howell  always  ran  a  lively  sporting  de- 

?>7^ 


GEORGIA  JOURNALISM 

partment.  Away  back  in  the  days  of  bare-knuckle  prize 
fights — such  as  those  between  SulHvan  and  Ryan,  and 
SuUivan  and  Kilrain — a  "Constitution"  reporter  was  al- 
ways at  the  ringside,  no  matter  where  the  fight  might 
take  place.  For  a  newspaper  in  a  town  of  forty  or  fifty 
thousand  inhabitants,  a  large  percentage  of  them  colored 
illiterates,  this  was  real  enterprise. 

A  favorite  claim  of  Grady's  was  that  his  reporters 
were  the  greatest  "leg  artists"  in  the  world.  He  used 
to  organize  walking  matches  for  reporters,  offering 
large  prizes  and  charging  admission.  This  developed, 
in  the  middle  eighties,  a  general  craze  for  such  matches, 
and  resulted  in  the  holding  of  many  inter-city  contests, 
in  which  teams,  four  men  to  a  side,  took  part.  One  of 
the  "Constitution's"  champion  "leg  artists"  was  Sam  W. 
Small,  now  an  evangelist  and  member  of  the  "flying 
squadron"  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League  of  America. 

The  most  widely  celebrated  individual  ever  connected 
with  the  "Constitution"  was  Joel  Chandler  Harris,  many 
of  whose  "Uncle  Remus"  stories — those  negro  folk 
tales  still  supreme  in  their  field — appeared  originally  in 
that  paper.  In  view  of  Mr.  Harris's  achievement  it  is 
pleasant  to  recall  that  there  was  paid  to  him  during  his 
life  one  of  the  finest  tributes  that  an  author  can  receive. 
As  with  "Mr.  Dooley"  of  our  day,  he  came,  himself,  to 
be  afifectionately  referred  to  by  the  name  of  the  chief 
character  in  his  works.  "Uncle  Remus"  he  was,  and 
"Uncle  Remus"  he  will  always  be.     Mr.  Harris's  eldest 

Z73 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

son,  Julian,  widely  known  as  a  jcjiirnalist,  is  said  to  have 
been  the  little  boy  to  whom  "Uncle  Remus"  told  his 
tales. 

Though  there  is,  as  yet,  no  public  monument  in  At- 
lanta to  Joel  Chandler  Harris,  the  "Wren's  Nest,"  his 
former  home,  at  214  Gordon  Street,  is  fittingly  pre- 
served as  a  memorial.  Visitors  may  see  the  old  let- 
ter box  fastened  to  a  tree  by  the  gate — that  box  in 
which  a  wren  built  her  nest,  giving  the  house  its  name. 
It  is  a  simple  old  house  with  the  air  of  a  home  about 
it,  and  the  intimate  possessions  of  the  author  lie  al)out 
as  he  left  them.  His  bed  is  made  up,  his  umbrella  hangs 
upon  the  mantelshelf,  his  old  felt  hat  rests  upon  the 
rack,  the  photograph  of  his  friend  James  Whitcoml) 
Riley  looks  down  from  the  bedroom  wall,  and  on  the 
table,  by  the  window,  stands  his  typewriter — the  confi- 
dant first  to  know^  his  new  productions. 

The  presence  of  these  personal  belongings  keeps  alive 
the  illusion  that  "Uncle  Remus"  has  merely  stepped 
out  for  a  little  while — is  hiding  in  the  garden,  wait- 
ing for  us  to  go  away.  It  would  be  like  him,  for  he 
was  among  the  most  modest  and  retiring  of  men,  as 
there  are  many  amusing  anecdotes  to  indicate.  Once 
when  some  one  had  persuaded  him  to  attend  a  large 
dinner  in  New  York,  they  say,  he  got  as  far  as  New 
York,  but  as  the  dinner  hour  approached  could  not  bear 
to  face  the  adulation  awaiting  him,  and  incontinently 
fled  back  to  Atlanta. 

Frank  L.  Stanton,  poet  laureate  of  Georgia,  and  of 

374 


GEORGIA  JOURNALISM 

the  "Constitution,"  joined  the  ''Constitution"  staff 
through  the  efforts  of  Mr.  Harris,  one  of  whose  closest 
intimates  he  was.  Speaking  of  Mr.  Harris's  gift  for 
negro  dialect,  Mr.  Stanton  told  me  that  there  was  one 
negro  exclamation  which  "Uncle  Remus"  always  wished 
to  reproduce,  but  which  he  never  quite  felt  could  be 
expressed,  in  writing,  to  those  unfamiliar  with  the 
negro  at  first  hand:  that  is  the  exclamation  of  amaze- 
ment, which  has  the  sound,  "mmm — mh!" — the  first  syl- 
lable being  long  and  the  last  sharp  and  exclamatory. 

Mr.  Stanton  has  for  years  conducted  a  column  of 
verse  and  humorous  paragraphic  comment,  under  the 
heading  "Just  from  Georgia,"  on  the  editorial  page  of 
the  "Constitution."  Some  Idea  of  the  high  estimation 
in  which  he  is  held  in  his  State  is  to  be  gathered  from 
the  fact  that  "Frank  L.  Stanton  Day"  is  annually  cele- 
brated in  the  Georgia  schools. 

Mr.  Stanton  began  his  newspaper  career  as  a  country 
editor  in  the  town  of  Smithville,  Georgia.  Mr.  Har- 
ris, then  a  member  of  the  "Constitution's"  editorial  staff, 
began  reprinting  in  that  journal  verses  and  paragraphs 
written  by  Stanton,  with  the  result  that  the  Smithville 
paper  became  known  all  over  the  country.  Later  Stan- 
ton moved  to  Rome,  Georgia,  becoming  an  editorial 
writer  on  a  paper  there — the  "Tribune,"  edited  at  that 
time  by  John  Temple  Graves,  if  I  am  not  mistaken. 
Still  later  he  removed  to  Atlanta,  joined  the  staff  of  the 
"Constitution,"  and  started  the  department  which  has 
now  continued  for  more  than  twenty-five  years, 

375 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Joel  Chandler  Harris  used  to  tell  a  story  about  Stan- 
ton's first  days  in  the  "Constitution"  office.  According 
to  this  story,  the  paper  on  which  Stanton  had  worked 
in  Rome  had  not  been  prosperous,  and  salaries  were 
uncertain.  When  the  business  manager  went  out 
to  try  to  raise  money  in  the  town,  he  never  returned 
without  first  reading  the  signals  placed  by  his  assist- 
ant in  the  ofiice  window.  If  a  red  flag  was  shown, 
it  signified  that  a  collector  was  w^aiting  in  the  office.  In 
that  event  the  business  manager  would  not  come  in,  but 
would  circle  about  until  the  collector  became  tired  of 
waiting  and  departed — a  circumstance  indicated  by  the 
withdrawal  of  the  red  flag  and  the  substitution  of  a 
white  one.  According  to  the  story,  as  it  was  told  to 
me,  reporters  on  the  paper  were  seldom  paid;  if  one  of 
them  made  bold  to  ask  for  his  salary,  he  was  likely  to 
be  discharged.  It  w^as  froni  this  uncertain  existence 
that  Stanton  w^as  lured  to  the  ''Constitution"  by  an  offer 
of  $22.50  per  week.  When  he  had  been  on  the  ''Consti- 
tution" for  three  weeks  Mr.  Harris  discovered  that  he 
had  drawn  no  salary.  This  surprised  him — as  indeed 
it  would  any  man  who  had  had  newspaper  experi- 
ence. 

"Stanton,"  he  said,  "you  are  the  only  newspaper  man 
I  have  ever  seen  who  is  so  rich  he  does  n't  need  to  draw 
his  pay." 

But,  as  it  turned  out,  Stanton  w^as  not  so  prosperous 
as  Harris  perhaps  supposed.  He  was  down  to  his  last 
dime,  and  had  been  wondering  how  he  could  manage  to 

37^ 


The  office  buildings  are  city  office  buildings,  and  are  suliicicnU}-  numerous  to 
look  verj^  much  at  home     ' 


GEORGIA  JOURNALISM 

get  along;  for  his  training  on  the  Rome  paper  had  taught 
him  never  to  ask  for  money  lest  he  lose  his  job. 

"Well,"  he  said  to  Harris,  "I  could  use  some  of  my 
salary — if  you  're  sure  it  won't  be  any  inconven- 
ience?" 

Those  familiar  with  the  works  of  Mr.  Stanton,  Mr. 
Harris,  and  James  Whitcomb  Riley,  Indiana's  great 
poet,  will  perceive  that  certain  similar  tastes  and  feel- 
ings inform  their  writings,  and  will  not  be  surprised 
to  learn,  if  not  already  aware  of  it,  that  the  three  were 
friends.  Mr.  Stanton's  only  absence  from  Atlanta  since 
he  joined  the  ''Constitution,"  was  on  the  occasion  of  a 
visit  he  paid  Mr.  Riley  at  the  latter's  home  in  Indian- 
apolis. The  best  of  Stanton's  work  must  have  appealed 
to  Riley,  for  it  contains  not  a  little  of  the  kindly,  homely, 
humorous  truthfulness,  and  warmth  of  sentiment,  of 
which  Riley  was  himself  such  a  master.  Among  the 
most  widely  familiar  verses  of  the  Georgia  poet  are 
those  of  his  "Mighty  Like  a  Rose,"  set  to  music  by  Ethel- 
bert  Nevin,  and  "J^st  a-Wearying  for  You,"  with  mu- 
sic by  Carrie  Jacobs  Bond.  "Money"  Is  a  verse  In 
hilarious  key,  which  many  will  remember  for  the  com- 
ical vigor  of  the  last  three  lines  in  its  first  stanza : 

When  a  fellow  has  spent 

His  last  red  cent 

The  world  looks  blue,  you  bet ! 

But  give  him  a  dollar 

And  you  '11  hear  him  holler : 

"There's  life  in  the  old  land  yet!" 

377 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Richly  humorous  though  Stanton  is,  he  can  also 
reach  the  heart.  The  former  Governor  of  a  Western 
State  picked  up  Stanton's  book,  "Songs  of  the  Soil," 
and  after  reading  "Hanging  Bill  Jones,"  and  "A  Trag- 
edy," therein,  commuted  the  sentence  of  a  man  who  was 
to  have  been  executed  next  day.  One  hopes  the  man 
deserved  to  escape.  In  another  case  an  individual  who 
was  about  to  commit  suicide  chanced  to  see  in  an  old 
newspaper  Stanton's  encouraging  verses  called  "Keep 
a-Goin',"  and  was  stimulated  by  them  to  have  a  fresh 
try  at  life  on  earth  instead  of  elsewhere. 

Joel  Chandler  Harris  wrote  the  introduction  to 
''Songs  of  the  Soil."  Other  collections  of  Stanton's 
works  are  ''Songs  of  Dixie  Land,"  and  "Comes  One 
A\'ith  a  Song."  The  danger  in  starting  to  quote  from 
these  books — which,  by  the  way,  are  chiefly  made  up  of 
measures  that  appeared  originally  in  the  "Constitu- 
tion"— is  that  one  does  not  like  to  stop.  I  have,  how- 
ever, limited  myself  to  but  one  more  theft,  and  instead 
of  making  my  own  choice,  have  left  the  selection  to  a 
friend  of  Mr.  Stanton's,  who  has  suggested  the  lines 
entitled  "A  Poor  Unfortunate" : 

His  boss  went  dead,  an'  his  niule  went  lame, 
He  lost  six  cows  in  a  poker  game ; 
A  harricane  come  on  a  summer's  clay 
An'  carried  the  house  whar  he  lived  away, 
Then  a  earthquake  come  when  that  wuz  gone 
An'  swallered  the  land  that  the  house  stood  on ! 
An'  the  tax  collector,  he  come  roun' 
An'  charged  him  up  fer  the  hole  in  the  groun' ! 

378 


GEORGIA  JOURNALISM 

An'  the  city  marshal  he  come  in  view 
An'  said  he  wanted  his  street  tax,  too ! 

Did  he  moan  an'  sigh?     Did  he  set  an'  cry 

An'  cuss  the  harricane  sweepin'  by? 

Did  he  grieve  that  his  old  friends  failed  to  call 

When  the  earthquake  come  and  swallered  all? 

Never  a  word  o'  blame  he  said, 

With  all  them  troubles  on  top  his  head ! 

Not  him !     He  climbed  on  top  o'  the  hill 

Whar  stan'in'  room  wuz  left  him  still, 

An',  barrin'  his  head,  here  's  what  he  said : 

"I  reckon  it 's  time  to  git  up  an'  git. 

But,  Lord,  I  hain't  had  the  measles  yit !  " 

Among  those  who  have  been  on  the  staff  of  the  "Con- 
stitution" and  have  become  widely  known,  may  be  men- 
tioned the  gifted  Corra  Harris,  many  of  whose  stories 
have  Georgia  backgrounds,  and  who  still  keeps  as  a 
country  home  in  the  State  where  she  was  born,  a  log 
cabin,  known  as  "In  the  Valley,"  at  Pine  Log,  Geor- 
gia; also  the  perhaps  equally  (though  differently)  tal- 
ented Robert  Adamson,  whose  administration  as  fire 
commissioner  of  the  City  of  New  York  was  so  able  as 
to  result  in  a  reduction  of  insurance  rates. 

Atlanta  reporters,  it  would  seem,  run  to  the  New 
York  Fire  Department,  for  Joseph  Johnson,  who  pre- 
ceded Mr.  Adamson  as  commissioner,  was  once  a  re- 
porter on  the  Atlanta  "Journal."  The  latter  paper  used 
to  belong  to  Hoke  Smith,  It  was  at  one  time  edited  by 
John  Temple  Graves,  who  later  edited  the  Atlanta 
"Georgian,"  and  is  now  a  member  of  the  forces  of 

379 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

William  Randolph  Hearst,  in  New  York.  The  late 
Jacques  Futrelle,  the  author,  who  went  down  with  the 
Titanic,  was  a  Georgian,  and  worked  for  years  on  the 
"Journal."  Don  Marquis,  one  of  the  most  brilliant 
American  newspaper  ''columnists,"  now  in  charge  of 
the  department  known  as  "The  Sun  Dial"  on  the  New 
^'()^k  "Evening  Sun,"  was  also  at  one  time  on  the  **J^^^" 
nal,"  as  was  likewise  Grantland  Rice,  America's  most 
widely  read  sporting  writer.  Lollie  Belle  Wiley,  whose 
poetry  has  a  distinct  southern  quality,  is,  I  believe,  a 
member  of  the  "Journal's"  staff.  As  the  eminent  Ty 
Cobb  once  wrote  a  book,  it  seems  fair  to  mention  him 
also  among  Georgian  authors,  though  so  far  as  I  know 
he  never  worked  on  an  Atlanta  paper.  And  if  Atlanta's 
three  celebrated  golfers  have  not  written  for  the  papers, 
they  have  at  least  supplied  the  sporting  page  wnth  much 
material.  Miss  Alexa  Sterling  of  Atlanta,  a  young 
lady  under  twenty,  is  one  of  the  best  women  golfers  in 
the  United  States;  Perry  Adair  also  figures  in  national 
golf,  and  Robert  T.  ("Bobby")  Jones,  Jr.,  who  was 
southern  champion  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  is,  perhaps, 
an  unprecedented  marvel  at  the  game — so  at  least  my 
golfing  friends  inform  me. 

The  continued  militancy  of  the  "Constitution,"  under 
the  editorship  of  Clark  Howell,  who  sits  in  his  father's 
old  chair,  with  a  bust  of  Grady  at  his  elbow,  is  evidenced 
not  only  by  its  frequent  editorials  against  lynching,  but 
by  its  fearless  campaign  against  another  Georgia 
specialty — the    "paper    colonel."     The    ranks    of    the 

380 


GEORGIA  JOURNALISM 

"paper  colonels"  in  the  South  are  chiefly  made  up  of 
lawyers  who  "have  been  colonelized  by  custom  for  no 
other  reason  than  that  they  have  led  their  clients  to  vic- 
tory in  legal  battles."  Some  of  the  real  colonels  have 
been  objecting  to  the  paper  kind,  and  the  "Constitution" 
has  bravely  backed  up  the  objection. 

The  liveliness  of  journalism  in  Georgia  does  not  be- 
gin and  end  in  Atlanta.  The  Savannah  "Morning 
News"  has  an  able  editorial  page,  and  there  are  many 
others  in  the  State.  Some  of  the  small-town  papers  are, 
moreover,  well  worth  reading  for  that  kind  of  breeziness 
which  we  usually  associate  with  the  West  rather  than 
the  South.  Consider,  for  example,  the  following,  in 
which  the  Dahlonega  (Georgia)  "Nugget,"  published  up 
in  the  mountains,  in  the  section  where  gold  is  mined, 
discusses  the  failings  of  one  Billie  Adams,  the  editor's 
own  son-in-law: 

On  Saturday  last,  Billie  Adams  and  his  wife  waylaid  the  public 
road  over  on  Crown  Mountain,  where  this  sorry  piece  of  human- 
ity stood  and  cursed  while  his  wife  knocked  down  and  beat  her 
sister,  Emma.  He  is  a  son-in-law  of  ours,  but  if  the  Lord  had 
anything  to  do  with  him,  He  must  have  made  a  mistake  and 
thought  He  was  breathing  the  breath  of  life  into  a  dog. 

He  is  too  lazy  to  work  and  lays  around  and  waits  for  his  wife 
to  get  what  she  can  procure  on  credit,  until  she  can  get  nothing 
more  for  him  and  the  children  to  eat.  Recently  he  claimed  to  be 
gone  to  Tennessee  in  search  of  work.  Upon  hearing  that  his 
family  had  nothing  to  eat.  we  had  Carl  Brooksher  send  over  nearly 
four  dollars'  worth  of  provisions.  In  he  came  and  sat  there  and 
feasted  until  every  bite  was  gone.     But  this  ends  it  with  us. 

There  are  a  lot  of  people  who  have  sorry  kinfolks,  but  in  this 

381 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

instance  if  there  were  prizes  offered,  we  would  certainly  win  the 
first. 

Last  year,  thinking  he  would  scare  his  mother-in-law  and  sister- 
in-law  off  from  where  they  live,  so  he  could  get  the  place,  he  shot 
two  holes  through  their  window,  turned  their  mule  out  of  the 
stable,  and  tried  to  run  it  into  the  bean  patch,  besides  hanging 
up  a  bunch  of  switches  at  the  drawbars.  Then  their  fence  was 
set  afire  twice.  This  is  said  to  be  the  work  of  his  wife.  Then, 
after  carrying  home  meat,  flour,  lard,  and  vegetables  to  eat  for 
her  mother  and  sister,  he  whipped  the  latter  because  she  refused 
to  give  him  two  of  the  wagon  wheels. 

The  city  made  a  case  against  both  for  the  whipping,  and  the 
wife,  although  coming  to  town  alone  frequently  during  the  day, 
brought  her  baby  and  everything  to  the  council  room,  plead 
guilty  and  was  fined  one  and  costs.  Billie  did  n't  appear,  but  if 
he  stays  in  this  country  Marshal  Wimpy  will  have  him,  when  all 
these  things  will  come  to  light,  both  in  the  council  chamber  and 
grand  jury  room. 

The  scandal  of  newspaperdom  in  Georgia  is,  of 
course,  Tom  Watson,  who  piibhshes  the  "Jeffersonian" 
— a  misnamed  paper  if  there  ever  was  one — in  the  town 
of  Thomson.  Many  years  ago,  when  Edward  P. 
Thomas,  now  assistant  to  the  president  of  the  United 
States  Steel  Corporation,  was  a  little  boy  in  Atlanta, 
complaining  about  having  his  ears  washed ;  when  Theo- 
dore D.  Rousseau,  secretary  to  Mayor  Mitchel  of  New 
York,  was  having  his  early  education  drilled  into  him 
at  the  Ivy  Street  school ;  when  Ralph  Peters,  now  presi- 
dent of  the  Long  Island  Railroad,  had  left  Atlanta  and 
become  a  division  superintendent  on  the  Panhandle 
Road ;  when  the  parents  of  Ivy  Ledbetter  Lee  were  won- 
dering to  what  college  they  would  send  him  when  he 

382 


GEORGIA  JOURNALISM 

grew  to  be  a  big  boy;  when  Robert  Adamson  was  a 
page  in  the  Georgia  Legislature — as  long  ago  as  that, 
Tom  Watson  was  waving  his  red  head  and  prominent 
Adam's  apple  as  a  member  of  the  State  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives. In  the  mad  and  merry  days  of  Bryan- 
ism  he  became  a  Populist  Member  of  Congress.  He 
was  nominated  for  vice-president,  to  run  on  the  Popu- 
list ticket  with  Bryan.  Later  he  ran  for  president  on 
the  ticket  of  some  unheard-of  party,  organized  in  pro- 
test against  the  "conservatism"  of  the  Populists.  Wat- 
son's paper  reminds  one  of  Brann  and  his  "Iconoclast." 
Reading  it,  I  have  never  been  able  to  discover  what 
Watson  was  for.  All  I  could  find  out  was  what  he  was 
violently  against — and  that  is  almost  everything.  He 
is  the  wild  ass  of  Georgia  journalism;  the  thistles  of 
chaos  are  sweet  in  him,  and  order  in  any  department  of 
life  is  a  chestnut  burr  beneath  his  tail. 


383 


CHAPTER  XXXV 
SOME  ATLANTA  INSTITUTIONS 

THERE  has  been  great  rejoicing  in  Atlanta  over 
the  raising  of  funds  for  the  establishment  there 
of  two  new  universities,  Emory  and  Oglethorpe. 
Emory  was  founded  in  19 14,  as  the  result  of  a  feud 
which  developed  in  Vanderbilt  University,  located  at 
Nashville,  Tennessee,  over  the  question  as  to  whether 
the  institution  should  be  controlled  by  the  Board  of 
Bishops  of  the  southern  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  or 
by  the  University  trustees,  who  were  not  so  much  inter- 
ested in  the  development  of  the  sectarian  side  of  the  uni- 
versity. The  fight  was  taken  to  the  courts  where  the 
trustees  won.  As  a  result,  Methodist  influence  and  sup- 
port were  withdrawn  from  Vanderbilt,  which  thence- 
forward became  a  non-sectarian  college,  and  Emory  was 
started — Atlanta  having  been  selected  as  its  home  be- 
cause nearly  a  million  and  a  half  dollars  was  raised  in 
Atlanta  to  bring  it  there. 

Oglethorpe  is  to  be  a  Presbyterian  institution,  and 
starts  off  with  a  million  dollars. 

This  will  give  Atlanta  three  rather  important  col- 
leges, since  she  already  has  the  technical  liranch  of  the 
University  of  Georgia,  the  main  establishment  of  which 

384 


j-j-tftiM 


The  negro  roof -garden,  Odd  Fellows'  Building,  Atlanta 


SOME  ATLANTA  INSTITUTIONS 

located  at  Athens,  Georgia,  is  one  of  the  oldest  stat> 
universities  in  the  country,  having  been  founded  in  1801. 
(The  University  of  Tennessee  is  the  oldest  state  uni- 
versity in  the  South.  It  was  founded  in  1794-  The 
University  of  Pennsylvania,  dating  from  1740,  is  the 
oldest  of  all  state  universities.  Harvard,  founded  in 
1636,  was  the  first  college  established  in  the  country; 
and  the  only  other  American  colleges  which  survive 
from  the  seventeenth  century  are  William  and  Mary,  at 
Williamsburg,  Virginia,  established  in  1693,  and  St. 
John's  College,  at  Annapolis,  dating  from  1696.) 

There  is  a  tendency  in  some  parts  of  the  South  to  use 
the  terms  "college"  and  "university"  loosely.  Some 
schools  for  white  persons,  doing  little  if  anything  more 
than  grammar  and  high-school  work,  are  called  "col- 
leges," and  negro  institutions  doing  similar  work  are 
sometimes  grandiloquently  termed  "universities." 

Atlanta  has  thirteen  public  schools  for  negroes,  but 
no  public  high  school  for  them.  There  are,  however, 
six  large  private  educational  institutions  for  negroes  in 
the  city,  doing  high-school,  college,  or  graduate  work, 
making  Atlanta  a  great  colored  educational  center. 
Of  these,  Atlanta  University,  a  non-sectarian  co- 
educational college  with  a  white  president  (Mr.  Ed- 
ward T.  Ware,  whose  father  came  from  New  England 
and  founded  the  institution  in  1867),  is,  I  believe,  the 
oldest  and  largest.  It  is  very  highly  spoken  of.  At- 
lanta and  Clark  Universities  are  the  only  two  colored 
colleges  in  Atlanta  listed  in  the  "World  Almanac's"  table 

385 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

of  American  universities  and  colleges.  Clark  also  has  a 
white  man  as  president. 

Spclman  Seminary,  a  l-.aptist  institution  for  colored 
girls,  has  a  white  woman  president,  and  is  partially  sup- 
ported by  Rockefeller  money.  Morehouse  College,  for 
boys,  has  a  colored  president,  an  able  man,  is  of  sim- 
ilar denomination  and  is  also  partially  supported  by 
Rockefeller  funds.  Spelman  and  Morehouse  are  run 
separately,  excepting  in  college  work,  on  which  they 
combine.  Both  are  said  to  be  excellent.  Morris 
Brown  University  is  not  a  university  at  all,  but  does 
grammar  and  high-school  work.  It  is  officered  and 
supported  by  colored  people,  all  churches  of  the  African 
Methodist  Episcopal  denomination  subscribing  funds 
for  its  maintenance.  Gammon  Theological  Seminary 
is,  I  am  informed,  the  one  adequately  endowed  educa- 
tional establishment  for  negroes  in  Atlanta.  It  would, 
of  course,  be  a  splendid  thing  if  the  best  of  these  schools 
and  colleges  could  be  combined. 

Citizens  of  Atlanta  do  not,  generally,  take  the  inter- 
est they  ought  to  take  in  these  or  other  institutions  for 
the  benefit  of  negroes.  To  be  sure,  most  Southerners  do 
not  believe  in  higher  education  for  negroes ;  but,  even  al- 
lowing for  that  viewpoint,  it  is  manifestly  unfair  that 
white  children  should  have  public  high  schools  and  that 
negro  children  should  have  none,  but  should  be  obliged 
to  pay  for  their  education  above  the  grammar  grades. 
Perhaps  there  are  people  in  Atlanta  who  believe  that 
even   a   high-school   education   is   undesirable   for   the 

386 


SOME  ATLANTA  INSTITUTIONS 

negro.  That,  however,  seems  to  me  a  pretty  serious 
thing  for  one  race  to  attempt  to  decide  for  another — 
especially  when  the  deciding  race  is  not  deeply  and  sin- 
cerely interested  in  the  uplift  of  the  race  over  which  it 
holds  the  whip  hand.  Certainly  intelligent  people  in 
the  South  believe  in  industrial  training  for  the  negro, 
and  equally  certainly  a  negro  high  school  could  give  in- 
dustrial training. 

Negroes  are  not  admitted  to  Atlanta  parks,  nor  are 
there  any  parks  exclusively  for  them.  Until  recently 
there  was  no  contagious-disease  hospital  to  which  ne- 
groes could  be  taken,  and  there  is  not  now  a  reforma- 
tory for  colored  girls  in  the  State  of  Georgia.  Neither 
is  there  any  provision  whatsoever  in  the  State  for  the 
care  of  feeble-minded  colored  children.  And  there  is 
one  thing  even  worse  to  be  said.  Shameful  as  are 
Georgia's  frequent  lynchings,  shameful  as  is  the  State's 
indifference  to  negro  welfare,  blacker  yet  is  the  law  upon 
her  statute  books  making  the  ''age  of  consent"  ten 
years!  Various  women's  organizations,  and  individual 
women,  have,  for  decades,  worked  to  change  this  law, 
but  without  success.  The  term  * 'southern  chivalry" 
must  ring  mocking  and  derisive  in  the  ears  of  Georgia 
legislators  until  this  disgrace  is  wiped  out.  Standing 
as  it  does,  it  means  but  one  thing:  that  in  order  to  pro- 
tect some  white  males  in  their  depravity,  the  voters  of 
Georgia  are  satisfied  to  leave  little  girls,  ten,  eleven, 
twelve  years  of  age,  and  upward,  white  as  well  as  col- 
ored, utterly  unprotected  by  the  law  in  this  regard. 

387 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

I  have  heard  more  than  one  woman  in  Georgia  inti- 
mate that  she  would  be  well  pleased  w^ith  a  little  less 
exterior  ''chivalry"  and  a  little  more  plain  justice. 
Aside  from  their  efforts  to  change  the  "age  of  con- 
sent" law,  leading  women  in  the  State  have  been  work- 
ing for  compulsory  education,  for  the  opening  of  the 
State  University  to  women,  for  factory  inspection  and 
decent  child-labor  laws.  The  question  of  child  labor 
has  now^  been  taken  in  hand  by  the  National  Govern- 
ment— as,  of  course,  the  "age  of  consent"  should  also 
be — but  in  other  respects  but  little  progress  has  been 
made  in  Georgia. 

From  such  cheerless  items  T  turn  gladly  to  a  happier 
theme. 

As  I  have  said  elsewhere  in  this  book,  many  colored 
people  in  Atlanta  are  doing  well  in  various  ways.  At 
Atlanta  University  I  saw  several  students  whose  fa- 
thers and  mothers  were  graduates  of  the  same  institu- 
tion. Higher  education  for  the  negro  has,  thus,  come 
into  its  second  generation.  More  prosperous  negroes  in 
Atlanta  are  doing  social  settlement  work  among  less 
fortunate  members  of  their  race,  and  have  started  a  free 
kindergarten  for  negro  children.  Many  good  people  in 
Atlanta  are  unaware  of  these  facts,  and  I  believe  their 
judgment  on  the  entire  negro  question  would  be  modi- 
fied, at  least  in  certain  details,  were  they  merely  to  in- 
form themselves  upon  various  creditable  negro  activities 
in  the  city.  The  northern  stranger,  attempting  to  as- 
certain the  truth  about  the  negro  and  the  negro  problem, 

388 


SOME  ATLANTA  INSTITUTIONS 

has  to  this  extent  the  advantage  of  the  average  South- 
erner: prejudice  and  indifference  do  not  prevent  his  go- 
ing among  the  negroes  to  find  out  what  they  are  doing 
for  themselves. 

At  various  times  in  my  hfe  chance  has  thrown  me 
into  contact  with  charities  in  great  variety,  and  philan- 
thropic work  of  many  kinds.  I  have  seen  theoretical 
charities,  sentimental  charities,  silly  charities,  pauper- 
izing charities,  wild-eyed  charities,  charities  which  did 
good,  and  others  which  worked  damage  in  the  world;  I 
have  seen  organized  charities  splendidly  run  under  diffi- 
cult circumstances  (as  in  the  Department  of  Chari- 
ties under  Commissioner  Kingsbury,  in  New  York 
City),  and  I  have  seen  other  organized  charities  badly 
run  at  great  expense;  I  have  seen  charities  conducted 
with  the  primary  purpose  of  ministering  to  the  vanity 
of  self-important  individuals  who  like  to  say:  *'See  all 
the  good  that  I  am  doing!"  and  I  have  seen  other  per- 
sonal charities  operated  (as  in  the  case  of  the  Rocke- 
feller Foundation)  with  a  perfectly  magnificent  scope 
and  effectiveness. 

Nevertheless,  of  all  the  charities  I  have  seen,  of  all 
the  efforts  I  have  witnessed  to  improve  the  condition 
of  humanity,  none  has  taken  a  firmer  hold  upon  my 
heart  than  the  Leonard  Street  Orphans'  Home,  for 
negro  girls,  in  Atlanta. 

The  home  is  a  humble  frame  building  which  was  used 
as  a  barracks  by  northern  troops  stationed  in  Atlanta 

389 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

after  the  Civil  W  ar.  In  ii  reside  Miss  Chadwick,  her 
helpers,  and  about  seventy  little  negro  girls ;  and  it  is  an 
interesting  fact  that  several  of  the  helpers  are  young 
colored  women  who,  themseives  brought  up  in  the  home 
and  taught  to  be  self-supporting,  have  been  drawn  back 
to  the  place  by  homesickness.  Was  ever  before  an  or- 
phan homesick  for  an  orphans'  home? 

Miss  Chadwick  is  an  Englishwoman.  Coming  out  to 
America  a  good  many  years  ago,  she  somehow  found 
Atlanta,  and  in  Atlanta  somehow  found  this  orphanage, 
which  was  then  both  figuratively  and  literally  dropping 
to  pieces.  Some  one  had  to  take  hold  of  it,  so  Miss 
Chadwick  did.  How  successful  she  has  been  it  is  hard 
to  convey  in  words.  I  do  not  mean  that  she  has  suc- 
ceeded in  building  up  a  great  flourishing  plant  with  a 
big  endowment  and  all  sorts  of  improvements.  Ear 
from  it.  The  home  stands  on  a  tiny  lot,  the  building 
is  ramshackle  and  not  nearly  large  enough  for  its  pur- 
pose, and  sometimes  it  seems  doubtful  where  the  money 
to  keep  it  going  will  come  from.  Nevertheless  the  home 
is  a  hundred  times  more  successful  than  I  could  have  be- 
lieved a  home  for  orphans,  colored  or  white,  could  be 
made,  had  I  not  seen  it  with  my  own  eyes.  Its  success 
lies  not  in  material  possessions  or  prosperity,  not  in  the 
food  and  shelter  it  provides  to  those  who  so  pitifully 
needed  it.  but  in  the  fact  that  it  is  in  the  truest  and  finest 
sense  a  home,  a  place  endowed  with  the  greatest  bless- 
ings any  home  can  have:  contentment  and  afifection. 

390 


SOME  ATLANTA  INSTITUTIONS 

What  Miss  Chadwick  has  provided  is,  in  short,  an  insti- 
tution with  a  heart. 

How  did  she  do  it?  That,  Hke  the  other  mystery 
of  how  she  manages  to  house  those  seventy  small  lively 
people  in  that  little  building,  is  something  which  only 
Heaven  and  Miss  Chadwick  understand. 

But  then,  if  you  have  ever  visited  the  home  and  met 
Miss  Chadwick,  and  seen  her  with  her  children,  you 
know  that  Heaven  and  Miss  Chadwick  understand  a  lot 
of  things  the  rest  of  us  don't  know  about  at  all ! 


391 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 
A  BIT  OF  RURAL  GEORGIA 

To  walk  witli  the  morning  and  watch  its  rose  unfold; 
To  drowse  with  the  noontide  lulled  in  its  heart  of  gold ; 
To  lie  with  the  night-time  and  dream  the  dreams  of  old. 

— Madison  Cawein. 

A  MAN  I  know  studies  as  a  hobby  something  which 
he  calls  "graphics" — the  term  denoting  the  re- 
action of  the  mind  to  certain  words.  One  of 
the  words  he  used  in  an  experiment  with  me  was  "win- 
ter." When  he  said  "winter"  there  instantly  came  to 
me  the  picture  of  a  snowstorm  in  Quebec.  I  saw  the 
front  of  the  Hotel  Frontenac  at  dusk  through  a  mist 
of  driving  snow.  There  were  lights  in  the  windows. 
A  heavy  wind  was  blowing  and  as  I  leaned  against  it 
the  front  of  my  overcoat  was  plastered  with  sticky  white 
flakes.  The  streets  and  sidewalks  were  deep  with  snow, 
and  the  only  person  besides  myself  in  the  vision  was  a 
sentry  standing  wnth  his  gun  in  the  lee  of  the  vestibule 
outside  the  local  militia  headquarters. 

If  my  friend  were  to  come  now  and  try  me  with  the 
word  "spring,"  I  know  what  picture  it  would  call  to 
mind.  I  should  see  the  Burge  plantation,  near  Coving- 
ton, Georgia:  the  simple  old  white  house  with  its  rose- 
clad  porch,  or  "gallery,"  its  grove  of  tall  trees,  its  car- 
riage-house,  its  well-house,  and  other  minor  depend- 

392 


A  BIT  OF  RURAL  GEORGIA 

encies  clustering  nearby  like  chickens  about  a  white  hen, 
its  background  the  rolling  cottonfields,  their  red  soil 
glowing  salmon-colored  in  the  sun.  For,  as  I  was  never 
so  conscious  of  the  brutality  of  winter  as  in  that  evening 
snowstorm  at  Quebec,  I  was  never  so  conscious,  as  at 
the  time  of  our  visit  to  the  Burge  plantation,  of  the 
superlative  soft  sweetness  of  the  spring. 

In  seasons,  as  in  other  things,  we  have  our  individual 
preferences.  Melancholy  natures  usually  love  autumn, 
with  its  colorings  so  like  sweet  sad  minor  chords.  But 
what  kind  of  natures  they  are  which  rejoice  in  spring, 
which  feel  that  with  each  spring  the  gloomv  past  is 
blotted  out,  and  life,  with  all  its  opportunities,  begins 
anew — what  kind  of  natures  they  are  which  recognize 
April  instead  of  January  as  the  beginning  of  their  year 
I  shall  not  attempt  to  tell,  for  mine  is  such  a  nature,  and 
one  must  not  act  at  once  as  subject  and  diagnostician. 

So  long  as  I  endure,  spring  can  never  come  again 
without  turning  my  thoughts  to  northwestern  Georgia ; 
to  the  peculiar  penetrating  warmth  which  passed 
through  the  clothing  to  the  body  and  made  one  feel  that 
one  was  not  surrounded  by  mere  air,  but  was  immersed 
in  a  dry  bath  of  some  infinitely  superior  vapor,  a  vapor 
volatile,  soothing,  tonic,  distilled,  it  seemed,  from  the 
earth,  from  pine  trees,  tulip  trees,  balm-of-Gilead  trees, 
(or  ''bam"  trees,  as  they  call  them),  blossoming  Judas 
trees,  Georgia  crabapple,  dogwood  pink  and  white,  peach 
blossom,  wistaria,  sweet-shrub,  dog  violets,  pansy  violets, 
Cherokee  roses,  wild  honeysuckle  and  azalia,  and  the 

393 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

evanescent  green  of  new  treetops,  all  carried  in  solution 
in  the  sunlight.  By  day  the  brilliant  cardinal  adds  his 
fine  note  of  color  and  sound,  but  at  night  he  is  silent, 
and  when  the  moon  comes  out  one  hears  the  mocking- 
bird and,  it  may  be  also,  two  whippoorwills,  one  in  the 
grove  near  the  house,  one  in  the  woods  across  the  road, 
calling  back  and  forth.  Then  one  is  tempted  to  step 
down  from  the  porch,  and  follow  the  voices  of  the  birds 
into  the  vague  recesses  of  a  night  webbed  with  dark  tree 
shadows  outlined  in  blue  moonlight. 

Small  wonder  it  is,  if,  as  report  says,  no  houseparty 
on  a  southern  plantation  is  a  success  unless  young 
couples  become  ''sort  of  engaged,"  and  if  in  a  region  so 
provocative  in  springtime  under  a  full  moon,  a  distinc- 
tion is  recognized  between  being  merely  "engaged,"  and 
being  engaged  to  be  married. 

One  Georgia  belle  we  met,  a  sloe-eyed  girl  whose  repu- 
tation not  only  for  beauty  but  for  charm  reached  through 
the  entire  South,  had,  at  the  time  of  our  visit,  recently 
become  engaged  in  the  more  grave  and  permanent  sense. 

"How  does  it  seem?"  a  girl  friend  asked  her. 

*T  feel,"  she  answered,  "like  a  man  who  has  built  up  a 
large  business  and  is  about  to  go  into  the  hands  of  a  re- 
ceiver." 

Such  ways  as  those  girls  have!  Such  voices!  Such 
eyes !  And  such  names,  too !  Names  which  would  not 
fit  at  all  into  a  northern  setting,  relatively  so  hard  and 
unsentimental,  but  which,  when  one  becomes  accustomed 
to  them,  take  their  place  gracefully  and  harmoniously 

394 


A  BIT  OF  RURAL  GEORGIA 

in  the  southern  picture.  The  South  Hkes  diminutives 
and  combinations  in  its  women's  names.  Its  Harriets, 
Franceses,  Sarahs,  and  Marthas,  become  Hatties,  Fan- 
nies, SaUies  and  Patsies,  and  Patsy  sometimes  under- 
eoes  a  further  transition  and  becomes  Passie.  More- 
over,  where  these  diminutives  have  been  passed  down 
for  several  generations  in  a  family,  their  origin  is  some- 
times lost  sight  of,  and  the  diminutive  becomes  the  actual 
baptismal  name.  In  one  family  of  my  acquaintance,  for 
example,  the  name  Passie  has  long  been  handed  down 
from  mother  to  daughter.  The  original  great-grand- 
mother Passie  was  christened  Martha  but  was  at  first 
called  Patsy;  then,  because  her  black  mammy  was  also 
named  Patsy,  the  daughter  of  the  house  came  to  be 
known,  for  purposes  of  differentiation,  as  Passie,  and 
when  she  married  and  had  a  daughter  of  her  own,  the 
child  was  christened  Passie.  In  this  family  the  name 
May  has  more  recently  been  adopted  as  a  middle  name, 
and  it  is  customary  for  familiars  of  the  youngest  Passie, 
to  address  her  not  merely  as  Passie,  but  as  Passie-May. 
The  inclusion  of  the  second  name,  in  this  fashion,  is  an- 
other custom  not  uncommon  in  the  South.  In  Atlanta 
alone  I  heard  of  ladies  habitually  referred  to  as  Anna- 
Laura,  Hattie-May,  Lollie-Belle,  Sally-Maud,  Nora- 
Belle,  Mattie-Sue,  Emma-Belle,  Lottie-Belle,  Susie- 
May,  Lula-Belle,  Sallie-Fannie,  Hattie-Fannie,  Lou- 
Ellen,  Allie-Lou,  Clara-Belle,  Mary-Ella,  and  Hattie- 
Belle.  Another  young  lady  was  known  to  her  friends  as 
Jennie-D. 

395 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

The  train  from  Atlanta  set  us  down  at  Covington, 
Georgia,  or  rather  at  the  station  which  Hes  between  the 
towns  of  Covington  and  Oxford — for  when  this  rail- 
road was  built  neither  town  would  allow  it  a  right  of 
way,  and  to  this  day  each  is  connected  with  the  station 
by  a  street  car  line,  either  line  equipped  with  one  diminu- 
tive car,  a  pair  of  disconsolate  mules,  and  a  driver. 
Covington  is  the  County  seat,  a  quiet  southern  town, 
part  old,  part  new,  with  a  look  of  rural  prosperity  about 
it.  Stopping  at  the  postoffice  to  inquire  for  mail  we  saw 
this  peremptory  sign  displayed: 

When  the  window  is  down  don't  bang  around  and 
ask  for  a  stamp  or  two. 

— J.  L.  Callaway,  Postmaster. 

As  the  window  was  down  we  tiptoed  out  and  went 
upon  our  way,  driving  through  Oxford  before  going  to 
the  plantation.  This  town  was  named  for  Oxford,  Eng- 
land, and  is,  like  its  namesake,  a  college  town.  A  small 
and  very  old  Methodist  educational  institution,  with  a 
pretty  though  ragged  campus  and  fine  trees,  is  all  there 
is  to  Oxford,  save  a  row  of  ante-bellum  houses.  One 
of  them,  a  pleasant  white  mansion,  half  concealed  by  the 
huge  magnolias  which  stand  in  its  front  yard,  was 
at  one  time  the  residence  of  General  Longstreet.  The 
old  front  gate,  hanging  on  a  stone  post,  was  made  by  the 
general  w^ith  his  own  hands — and  well  made,  for  it  is  to- 
day as  good  a  gate  as  ever.     Corra  Harris  lived  at  one 


396 


CD    O  ' 

-I 
n 

CD 

3 


A  BIT  OF  RURAL  GEORGIA 

time  in  Oxford;  her  husband,  Rev.  Lundy  H.  Harris, 
having  been  a  professor  at  the  college. 

Though  plantation  life  has  necessarily  changed  since 
the  war,  I  do  not  believe  that  there  is  in  the  whole  South 
a  plantation  where  it  has  changed  less  than  on  the  Burge 
plantation.  In  appearance  the  place  is  not  as  Sher- 
man's men  found  it,  for  they  tore  down  the  fences  and 
ruined  the  beautiful  old-fashioned  garden,  and  neither 
has  been  replaced;  nor,  of  course,  is  it  run,  so  far  as 
practical  affairs  are  concerned,  as  it  was  before  the 
War;  that  is  to  say,  Instead  of  being  operated  as  a 
unit  of  nine-hundred  acres,  it  is  now  worked  chiefly 
on  shares,  and  is  divided  up  into  ''one  mule  farms" 
and  "two  mule  farms,"  these  being  tracts  of  about 
thirty  and  sixty  acres,  respectively,  thirty  acres  being 
approximately  the  area  which  can  be  worked  by  a  man 
and  a  mule. 

Practically  all  the  negroes  on  the  place — perhaps  a 
hundred  in  number — are  either  former  slaves  of  the 
Burge  family,  or  the  children,  grandchildren,  and  great- 
grandchildren of  slaves  who  lived  on  the  plantation. 
That  is  one  reason  why  the  plantation  is  less  changed  in 
spirit  than  are  many  others.  The  Burges  were  religious 
people,  used  their  slaves  kindly,  and  brought  them  up 
well,  so  that  the  negroes  on  the  plantation  to-day  are  re- 
spectable, and  in  some  Instances,  exemplary  people,  very 
different  from  the  vagrant  negro  type  which  has  devel- 
oped since  the  War,  making  labor  conditions  in  some 

397 


AMERICA^:  ADVENTURES 

parts  of  the  South  uncertain,  and  plantation  life,  in  some 
sections,  not  safe  for  unprotected  women. 

The  present  proprietors  of  the  r>urgc  plantation  are 
two  ladies,  granddaughters  of  Mrs.  Thomas  Burge,  who 
lived  here,  a  widow,  with  a  little  daughter,  when  General 
Sherman  and  his  hosts  came  by.  These  ladies  fre- 
quently spend  months  at  the  plantation  without  male  pro- 
tectors save  only  the  good  negroes  of  their  own  place, 
who  look  after  them  with  the  most  affectionate  devotion. 
True,  the  ladies  keep  an  ugly  looking  but  mild  mannered 
bulldog,  of  which  the  negroes  are  generally  afraid;  true 
also  they  carry  a  revolver  when  they  drive  about  the 
country  in  their  motor,  and  keep  revolvers  handy  in  their 
rooms;  but  these  precautions  are  not  taken,  they  told 
me,  because  of  any  doubts  about  the  men  on  their  place, 
their  one  fear  being  of  tramp  negroes,  passing  by. 

Of  their  own  negroes  several  are  remarkable,  par- 
ticularly one  old  couple,  perfect  examples  of  the  fine 
ante-bellum  type  so  much  beloved  in  the  South,  and  so 
much  regretted  as  it  disappears. 

During  the  period  of  twenty  years  or  more,  while  the 
owners  were  absent,  growing  up  and  receiving  their 
education,  the  w^hole  place,  indoors  and  out,  was  in 
charge  of  Uncle  George  and  Aunt  Sidney.  The  two 
lived,  and  still  do  live,  in  one  wing  of  the  house — 
over  which  Aunt  Sidney  presides  as  housekeeper  and 
cook,  as  her  mother.  Aunt  Liddy,  did  before  her.  Aunt 
Liddy  died  only  a  short  time  ago,  aged  several  years 
over  a  hundred.     Uncle  George  supervises  all  the  busi- 

398 


A  BIT  OF  RURAL  GEORGIA 

ness  of  the  plantation,  as  he  has  done  for  thirty  or  forty 
years.  He  collects  all  rents,  markets  the  crops  and  re- 
ceives the  payments,  makes  p'urchases,  pays  bills,  and 
keeps  peace  between  the  tenants — nor  could  any  human 
being  be  more  honorable  or  possess  a  finer,  sweeter  dig- 
nity. As  for  devotion,  when  the  little  girls  who  were 
away  returned  after  all  the  years  as  grown  women,  every 
ribbon,  every  pin  in  that  house  was  where  it  had  been 
left,  and  the  place  was  no  less  neat  than  if  the  ''white 
folks"  had  constantly  remained  there. 

Before  Georgia  went  dry  it  was  customary  for  negroes 
of  the  rougher  sort  to  get  drunk  in  town  every  Saturday 
night.  Drunken  negroes  would  consequently  be  pass- 
ing by,  all  night,  on  their  way  to  their  homes,  yelling  and 
(after  the  manner  of  their  kind  when  intoxicated)  shoot- 
ing their  revolvers  in  the  air.  Every  Saturday  night, 
when  the  ladies  were  at  home.  Uncle  George  would 
quietly  take  his  gun  and  place  himself  on  the  porch, 
remaining  there  until  the  last  of  the  obstreperous  way- 
farers had  passed. 

Uncle  Abe  and  Uncle  Wiley  are  two  other  worthy  and 
venerable  men  who  live  in  cabins  on  the  place.  Both 
were  there  when  Sherman's  army  passed  upon  its  de- 
vastating way,  and  both  were  carried  off,  as  were  thou- 
sands upon  thousands  of  other  negroes  out  of  that  wide 
belt  across  the  State  of  Georgia,  which  was  overrun 
in  the  course  of  the  March  to  the  Sea. 

"Ah  was  goin'  to  mill  wid  de  ox-caht,"  Uncle  Abe 
told  me,  "when  de  sol j as  dey  kim  'long  an'  got  me.     Dey 

399 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

tol'  me,  *Heah,  nigga!  Git  out  dat  caht,  an'  walk  be- 
hin'.  When  it  moves  you  move;  when  //  stops  you 
stop!'  An'  Hke  dat  Ah  walk  all  de  way  to  Savannah 
[two  hundred  and  fifty  miles] .  Den,  after  dat,  dey  took 
us  'long  up  No'th — me  an'  ma  brotha  Wiley,  ovah  deh." 

I  asked  him  what  regiment  he  went  with.  He  said  it 
was  the  Twenty-second  Indiana,  and  that  Dr.  Joe  Stil- 
well,  of  that  regiment,  who  came  from  a  place  near  Madi- 
son, Indiana  ("Ah  reckon  de  town  was  name  Brgwns- 
town"),  was  good  to  him.  An  officer  whom  he  knew,  he 
said,  was  Captain  John  Snodgrass,  and  another  Major 
Tom  Shay. 

"All  Ah  was  evvuh  w^o'ied  about  aftuh  dey  kini  tuck 
me,"  he  declared,  "was  gittin'  somep'n  t'  eat.  Dat  kinda 
put  me  on  de  wonduh,  sometahmes,  but  dey  used  us  all 
right.  Dr.  Pegg — him  dat  did  de  practice  on  de  planta- 
tion befo'  de  Wah — he  tol'  de  niggas  dat  de  Yankees 
would  put  gags  in  deh  moufs  an'  lead  'em  eroun'  like  dey 
wuz  cattle.  But  deh  wa'  n't  like  dat  nohow.  I  b'longed 
to  de  Secon'  Division,  Thuhd  B'gade,  Fou'teenth  Co' 
[corps].  Cap'n  Snodgrass,  he  got  to  be  lieutenant- 
cuhnel.  He  was  de  highes'  man  Ah  evuh  hel'  any  con- 
vuhsation  wid,  but  I  saw  all  de  gennuls  of  dat  ahmy." 

Uncle  Wiley  is  older  than  Uncle  A1:)e.  He  was  al- 
ready a  grown  man  with  three  children  when  taken  away 
by  some  of  Sherman's  men.  He  told  me  he  was  with  the 
Fifty-second  Ohio,  and  mentioned  Captain  Shepard. 

The  two  brothers  got  as  far  as  Washington,  D.  C. 

"We  got  los'  togedduh  in  de  U.  S.  buildin'  in  dat  city," 

400 


A  BIT  OF  RURAL  GEORGIA 

said  Uncle  Wiley.  "De  President  of  de  U.  S.  right  at 
dat  tahme  he  was  daid.  He  was  kill',  Ah  don'  s'pose 
it  wuz  a  week  befo'  we  got  to  Wash'n,  D.  C." 

''How  did  you  happen  to  come  all  the  way  back?"  I 
asked. 

"Well-1,"  ruminated  the  old  man,  "home  was  always 
a-restin'  on  mah  min'.  Ah  kep'  thinkin'  'bout  home. 
So  aftuh  de  Wah  ceasted  Ah  jus'  kim  'long  back." 

Many  of  the  old  plantation  customs  still  survive.  A 
little  before  noon  the  bell  is  rung  to  summon  the  hands 
from  the  cotton  fields.  Over  the  red  plowed  soil  you 
hear  a  darky  cry,  a  melodious  "Oh-o/z-oh!"  as  wild  and 
musical  as  the  cries  of  the  south-Italian  olive  gatherers. 
The  planters  cease  their  work,  mules  stand  still,  traces 
are  unhooked  from  singletrees,  and  chain-ends  thrown 
over  the  mules'  backs ;  then  the  men  mount  the  animals 
and  ride  in  to  the  midday  meal,  the  women  trudging 
after.  Those  who  rent  land,  or  work  on  shares,  go  to 
their  own  cabins,  while  those  employed  by  the  hour  or 
by  the  day  (the  rate  of  pay  is  ten  cents  an  hour  or  sev- 
enty-five cents  a  day)  come  to  the  kitchen  to  be  fed. 
Nor  is  it  customary  to  stop  there  at  feeding  negroes. 
As  m  the  old  days,  any  negro  who  has  come  upon  an 
errand  or  who  has  ''stopped  by"  to  sell  supplies,  or  for 
whatever  purpose,  expects  to  stay  for  "dinner,"  and 
makes  it  a  point  to  arrive  about  noon.  Thus  from 
sixteen  to  twenty  negroes  are  fed  daily  at  the  Burge 
plantation  house. 

The  old  Christmas  traditions  are  likewise  kept  up. 

401 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

On  Christmas  day  the  negroes  come  flocking  up  to  the 
house  for  their  gifts.  Their  first  concern  is  to  attempt 
to  cry  ''Christmas  gift!"  to  others,  before  it  can  be  said 
to  them — for  according  to  ancient  custom  the  one  who 
says  the  words  lirst  must  have  a  gift  from  the  other. 


402 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 
A  YOUNG  METROPOLIS 

AN  observer  approaching  a  strange  city  should  be 
"neutral  even  in  thought."  He  may  listen  to 
what  is  said  of  the  city,  but  he  must  not  per- 
mit his  opinions  to  take  form  in  advance ;  for,  like  other 
gossip,  gossip  about  cities  is  unreliable,  and  the  casual 
stranger's  estimate  of  cities  is  not  always  founded  upon 
broad  appreciations.  But  though  it  is  unwise  to  judge 
of  cities  by  what  is  said  of  them,  it  is  perhaps  worth 
remarking  that  one  may  often  judge  of  men  by  what  they 
say  of  cities. 

I  remember  an  American  manufacturer,  broken  down 
by  overwork,  who,  when  he  looked  at  Pompeii,  could 
think  only  of  the  wasted  possibilities  of  Vesuvius  as  a 
power  plant,  and  I  remember  two  traveling  salesmen 
on  a  southern  railroad  train  who  expressed  scorn  for 
the  exquisite  city  of  Charleston  because — they  said — it 
is  but  a  poor  market  place  for  suspenders  and  barbers' 
supplies.  There  are  those  who  think  of  Boston  only  as 
headquarters  of  the  shoe  trade,  others  who  think  of  it 
only  in  the  terms  of  culture,  and  still  others  who  regard 
it  solely  as  an  abode  of  negrophiles. 

In  the  case  of  the  chief  city  of  Alabama,  however,  my 
companion  and  I  noticed,  as  we  journeyed  through  the 

403 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

South,  that  reports  were  singularly  in  accord.  I  Bir- 
mingham is  too  young  to  have  any  Civil  War  history. 
Her  history  is  the  history  of  the  steel  industry  in  the 
South,  and  one  hears  always  of  that :  of  the  aftluence  of 
the  city  when  the  industry  is  thriving,  and  hard  times 
when  it  is  not.  One  is  invariably  told  that  Birming- 
ham is  nut  a  southern  city,  but  a  northern  city  in  the 
South,  and  the  chief  glories  of  the  place,  aside  from 
steel,  are  (if  one  is  to  believe  rumors  current  upon  rail- 
road trains  and  elsewhere),  a  twenty-seven  story  build- 
ing. Senator  Oscar  Underwood,  the  distinguished  Demo- 
cratic leader,  and  the  Tutwiler  Hotel.  Even  in  Atlanta 
it  is  conceded  that  the  Tutwiler  is  a  good  hotel,  and  when 
Atlanta  admits  that  anything  in  Birmingham  is  good  it 
may  be  considered  as  established  that  the  thing  is  very, 
very  good — for  Birmingham  and  Atlanta  view  each 
other  with  the  same  degree  of  cordiality  as  is  exchanged 
between  St.  Louis  and  Kansas  City,  ^linneapolis  and  St. 
Paul,  San  Francisco  and  Los  Angeles. 

Having  been,  in  the  course  of  our  southern  wander- 
ings, in  several  very  bad  hotels,  and  having  heard  the 
Tutwiler  compared  w^ith  Chicago's  Blackstone,  my  com- 
panion and  I  held  eager  anticipation  of  this  hostelry. 
Nor  w^ere  our  hopes  dashed  by  a  first  glimpse  of  the  city 
on  the  night  of  our  arrival.  It  was  a  modern-looking 
city — just  the  sort  of  city  that  would  have  a  fine  new 
hotel.  The  railroad  station  through  which  we  passed 
after  leaving  the  train  was  not  the  usual  dingy  little 
southern  station,  but  an  admirable  building,   and  the 

404 


A  YOUNG  METROPOLIS 

streets  along  which  we  presently  found  ourselves  gliding 
in  an  automobile  hack,  were  wide,  smooth,  and  brightly 
illuminated  by  clustered  boulevard  lights. 

True,  we  had  long  since  learned  not  to  place 
too  much  reliance  upon  the  nocturnal  aspects  of 
cities.  A  city  seen  by  night  is  like  a  woman  dressed  for 
a  ball.  Darkness  drapes  itself  about  her  as  a  black- 
velvet  evening  gown,  setting  off,  in  place  of  neck  and 
arms,  the  softly  glowing  faqades  of  marble  buildings; 
liehts  are  her  diamond  ornaments,  and  her  perfume  is 
the  cool  fragrance  of  night  air.  Almost  all  cities,  and 
almost  all  women,  look  their  best  at  night,  and  there  are 
those  which,  though  beautiful  by  night,  sink,  in  their 
daylight  aspect,  to  utter  mediocrity. 

Presently  our  motor  drew  up  before  the  entrance  of 
the  Tutwiler — a  proud  entrance,  all  revolving  doors  and 
glitter  and  promise.  A  brisk  bell  boy  came  running  for 
our  bags.     The  signs  were  of  the  best. 

The  lobby,  though  spacious,  was  crowded ;  the  decora- 
tions and  equipment  were  of  that  rich  sumptuousness 
attained  only  in  the  latest  and  most  magnificent  Ameri- 
can hotels;  there  was  music,  and  as  we  made  our  way 
along  we  caught  a  glimpse,  in  passing,  of  an  attractive 
supper  room,  with  small  table-lights  casting  their  soft 
radiance  upon  white  shirt  fronts  and  the  faces  of  pretty 
girls.  In  all  it  was  a  place  to  make  glad  the  heart  of 
the  weary  traveler,  and  to  cause  him  to  wonder  whether 
his  dress  suit  would  be  wrinkled  when  he  took  it  from 
his  trunk. 

405 


AMERICAN  AD\'RXTURES 

Behind  the  imposing  marble  "desk"  stood  several  im- 
peccable clerks,  and  to  one  of  these  1  addressed  myself, 
giving  our  names  and  mentioning  the  fact  that  we  had 
telegraphed  for  rooms.  I  am  not  sure  that  this  young 
man  wore  a  braided  cutaway  and  a  white  carnation ;  1 
only  know  that  he  affected  me  as  hotel  clerks  in  braided 
cutaways  and  white  carnations  always  do.  While  I 
spoke  he  stood  a  little  way  back  from  the  counter,  his 
chin  up,  his  gaze  barely  missing  the  top  of  my  hat,  his 
nostrils  seeming  to  contract  with  that  expression  of 
dubiousness  assumed  by  delicate  noses  w^hich  sense,  long 
before  they  encounter  it,  the  aroma  of  unworthiness. 

"Not  a  room  in  the  house,"  he  said.  Then,  as  though 
to  forestall  further  parley,  he  turned  and  spoke  with 
gracious  lightness  to  one  of  his  own  rank  and  occupation 
who,  at  the  request  of  my  companion,  w^as  ascertaining 
W'hether  letters  were  awaiting  us. 

"But  we  telegraphed  two  days  ago!"  T  protested  des- 
perately. 

"Can't  help  it.  Hardware  Convention.  Everything 
taken." 

Over  my  shoulder  I  heard  from  my  companion  a 
sound,  half  sigh,  half  groan,  which  echoed  the  cry  of 
my  own  heart. 

"I  felt  this  coming!"  he  murmured.  "Did  n't  you  no- 
tice all  these  people  with  ribbons  on  them?  There's 
never  any  room  in  a  hotel  where  everybody  's  wearing 
ribbons.  It 's  like  a  horse  show.  They  get  the  ribbons 
and  we  get  the  gate." 

406 


A  YOUNG  METROPOLIS 

"Surely,"  I  faltered,  "you  can  let  us  have  one  small 
room  ?" 

"Impossible,"  he  answered  brightly.  ''We  've  turned 
away  dozens  of  people  this  evening." 

"Then,"  I  said,  abandoning  hope,  "perhaps  you  will 
suggest  some  other  hotel?" 

I  once  heard  a  woman,  the  most  perfect  parvenu  I 
ever  met,  speak  of  her  poor  relations  in  a  tone  exactly 
similar  to  that  in  which  the  clerk  now  spoke  the  names 
of  two  hotels.  Having  spoken,  he  turned  and  passed  be- 
hind the  partition  at  one  end  of  the  marble  counter. 

My  companion  and  I  stood  there  for  a  moment  looking 
despondently  at  each  other.  Then,  without  a  word,  we 
retreated  through  that  gorgeous  lobby,  feeling  like  sad 
remnants  of  a  defeated  Yankee  army. 

Again  we  motored  through  the  bright  streets,  but  only 
to  successive  disappointments,  for  both  hotels  men- 
tioned by  the  austere  clerk  were  "turning  'em  away." 
Our  chauffeur  now  came  to  our  aid,  mentioning  several 
small  hotels,  and  in  one  of  these,  the  Granada,  we  were 
at  last  so  fortunate  as  to  find  lodgings. 

"It  begun  to  look  like  you  'd  have  to  put  up  at  the 
Roden,"  the  chauffeur  smiled  as  we  took  our  bags  out  of 
the  car  and  settled  with  him. 

"The  Roden?" 

"Yes,"  he  returned.  "Best  ventilated  hotel  in  the 
United  States." 

Next  day  when  the  Hotel  Roden  was  pointed  out  to 
us  we  appreciated  the  witticism,  for  the  Roden  is — or 

407 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

was  at  the  time  of  our  visit — merely  the  steel  skeleton 
of  a  building  which,  we  were  informed,  had  for  some 
years  stood  unfinished  owing  to  disagreements  among 
those  concerned  with  its  construction. 

As  for  the  Granada,  though  a  modest  place,  it  was 
new  and  clean;  the  clerk  was  amiable,  the  beds  comfort- 
able, and  if  our  rooms  were  too  small  to  admit  our 
trunks,  they  were,  at  all  events,  outside  rooms,  each  with 
a  private  bath,  at  a  rate  of  $i  per  day  apiece.  Never 
in  any  hotel  have  I  felt  that  I  was  getting  so  much  for 
my  money. 

Next  morning,  after  breakfast,  we  set  out  to  see  the 
city.  Having  repeatedly  heard  of  Birmingham  as  the 
"Pittsburgh  of  the  South,"  we  expected  cold  daylight 
to  reveal  the  sooty  signs  of  her  industrialism,  but  in  this 
we  were  agreeably  disappointed.  By  day  as  well  as  by 
night  the  city  is  pleasing  to  the  eye,  and  it  is  a  fact 
worth  noting  that  the  downtown  buildings  of  Atlanta 
(which  is  not  an  industrial  city)  are  streaked  and  dirty, 
whereas  those  of  Birmingham  are  clean — the  reason  for 
this  being  that  the  mills  and  furnaces  of  Birmingham 
are  far  removed  from  the  heart  of  the  town,  whereas 
locomotives  belch  black  smoke  into  the  very  center  of 
Atlanta's  business  and  shopping  district. 

Moreover,  the  metropolis  of  Alabama  is  better  laid 
out  than  that  of  Georgia.  The  streets  of  Birmingham 
are  wide,  and  the  business  part  of  the  city,  lying  upon  a 
flat  terrain,  is  divided  into  large,  even  squares.  From 
this  district  the  chief  residence  section  mounts  by  easy, 

408 


w 

3 
5' 

Crq 

! 


A  YOUNG  METROPOLIS 

graceful  grades  into  the  hills  to  the  southward.  Be- 
cause of  these  grades,  and  the  curving  drives  which  fol- 
low the  contours  of  the  hills,  and  the  vistas  of  the  lower 
city,  and  the  good  modern  houses,  and  the  lawns  and 
trees  and  shrubbery  and  breezes,  this  Highlands  region 
is  reminiscent  of  a  similar  residence  district  in  Portland, 
Oregon — which  is  to  say  that  it  is  one  of  the  most  agree- 
able districts  of  the  kind  in  the  United  States. 

Well  up  on  the  hillside,  Highland  Avenue  winds  a 
charming  course  between  pleasant  homes,  with  here  and 
there  a  little  residence  park  branching  off  to  one  side, 
and  here  and  there  a  small  municipal  park  occupying  an 
angle  formed  by  a  sharp  turn  in  the  driveway;  and  if 
you  follow  the  street  far  enough  you  will  presently  see 
the  house  of  the  Birmingham  Country  Club,  standing 
upon  its  green  hilltop,  amidst  rolling,  partly  wooded  golf 
links,  above  the  road. 

Nor  is  the  Country  Club  at  the  summit  of  this  range 
of  hills.  Back  of  it  rise  other  roads,  the  most  pic- 
turesque of  them  being  Altamont  Road,  which  runs  to 
the  top  of  Red  Mountain,  reaching  a  height  about 
equivalent  to  that  of  the  cornice  line  of  Birmingham's 
tallest  building.  The  houses  of  this  region  are  built  on 
streets  which,  like  some  streets  of  Portland,  are  ter- 
raced into  the  hillside,  and  the  resident  of  an  upper  block 
can  almost  look  down  the  chimneys  of  his  neighbors  on 
the  block  below.  The  view  commanded  from  these 
mountain  perches  does  not  suggest  that  the  lower  city 
runs  up  into  the  Highlands.     It  seems  to  be  a  separate 

409 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

place,  down  in  a  distant  valley,  and  the  sense  ui  its  re- 
moteness is  heightened  by  the  thin  veil  of  gray  smoke 
which  wafts  from  the  tall  smokestacks  of  far-off  iron 
furnaces,  softening  the  serrated  outlines  of  the  city  and 
wrapping  its  tall  buildings  in  the  industrial  equivalent 
for  autumn  haze. 

At  night  the  scene  from  the  Highlands  is  even  more 
spectacular,  for  at  brief  intervals  the  blowing  of  a  con- 
verter in  some  distant  steel  plant  illuminates  the  heavens 
with  a  great  hot  glow,  like  that  which  rises  and  falls 
about  the  crater  of  a  volcano  in  eruption.  Thus  the 
city's  vast  affairs  are  kept  before  it  by  day  in  a  pillar  of 
cloud,  and  by  night  in  a  pillar  of  fire.  Iron  and  steel 
dominate  Birmingham's  mind,  activities  and  life.  The 
very  ground  of  Red  Mountain  is  red  because  of  the  iron 
ore  that  it  contains,  and  those  who  reside  upon  the 
charming  slopes  of  this  hill  do  not  own  their  land  in  fee 
simple,  but  subject  always  to  the  mineral  rights  of  min- 
ing companies. 

The  only  other  industry  of  Birmingham  which  is  to 
be  compared,  in  magnitude  or  efficiency,  with  the  steel 
industry  is  that  of  "cutting  in"  at  dances.  All  through 
the  South  it  is  carried  on,  but  whereas  in  such  cities  as 
Memphis,  New  Orleans  and  Atlanta,  men  show  a  little 
mercy  to  the  stranger — realizing  that,  as  he  is  pre- 
sumably unacquainted  with  all  the  ladies  at  a  dance,  he 
cannot  retaliate  in  kind — Birmingham  is  merciless  and 
prosecutes  the  pestilential  practice  unremittingly,  even 
going  so  far  as  to  apply  the  universal-service  principle 

410 


A  YOUNG  METROPOLIS 

and  call  out  her  highschool  youths  to  carry  on  the  work. 
Before  I  went  to  certain  dances  in  Birmingham  I  felt 
that  high-school  boys  ought  to  be  kept  at  home  at  night, 
but  after  attending  these  dances  I  realized  that  such 
restriction  was  altogether  inadequate,  and  that  the  only 
way  to  deal  with  them  effectively  would  be  to  pickle  them 
in  vitriol. 

Where,  in  other  cities  of  the  South,  I  have  managed 
to  dance  as  much  as  half  a  dance  without  interruption,  I 
never  danced  more  than  twenty  feet  with  one  partner  in 
Birmingham.     Nor  did  my  companion. 

Our  host  was  energetic  in  presenting  us  to  ladies  of 
infinite  pulchritude  and  State-wide  terpsichorean  reputa- 
tion, but  we  would  start  to  tread  a  measure  with  them, 
only  to  have  them  swiftly  snatched  from  us  by  some 
spindle-necked,  long-wristed,  big-boned,  bowl-eared 
high-school  youth,  in  a  dinner  suit  which  used  to  fit  him 
when  it  was  new,  six  months  ago. 

As  we  would  start  to  dance  the  lady  would  say : 

*'You-all  ah  strangehs,  ah  n't  you?" 

We  would  reply  that  we  were. 

"Wheh  do  you  come  from  ?" 

"New  York." 

Then,  because  the  Hardware  Convention  was  being 
held  in  town  at  the  time,  she  would  continue : 

"Ah  reckon  you-all  ah  hahdware  men?" 

But  that  was  as  far  as  the  conversation  ever  got. 
Just  about  the  time  that  she  began  to  reckon  we  were 
hardware  men  a  mandatory  hand  would  be  laid  upon  us, 

411 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

and  before  we  had  time  to  defend  ourselves  against  the 
hardware  charge,  the  lady  would  be  wafted  off  in  the 
arms  of  some  predatory  youth  who  ought  to  have  been  at 
home  considering  pons  asinonim. 

Had  we  indeed  been  hardware  men,  and  had  we  had 
our  hardware  with  us,  they  could  have  done  with  fewer 
teachers  in  the  high  schools  of  that  city  after  the  night 
of  our  first  dance  in  Birmingham. 

Up  in  the  hills,  some  miles  back  of  the  Country  Club, 
on  the  banks  of  a  large  artificial  lake,  stands  the  new 
clubhouse  of  the  Birmingham  Motor  and  Country  Club, 
and  around  the  lake  runs  the  club's  two-and-a-half-mile 
speedway.  Elsewhere  is  the  Roebuck  Golf  Club,  the 
links  of  which  are  admitted  (''even  in  Atlanta!'')  to  be 
excellent — the  one  possible  objection  to  the  course  of  the 
Birmingham  Country  Club  being  that  it  is  suited  only 
to  play  wnth  irons. 

I  mention  these  golfing  matters  not  because  they  in- 
terest me,  but  because  they  may  interest  you.  T  am  not 
a  golfer.  I  played  the  game  for  tw^o  seasons;  then  I 
decided  to  try  to  lead  a  better  life.  The  first  time  I 
played  I  did  quite  well,  but  thence  onward  my  game 
declined  until,  tow^ard  the  last,  crowds  would  collect  to 
hear  me  play.  When  I  determined  to  abandon  the  game 
I  did  not  burn  my  clubs  or  break  them  up,  according  to 
the  usual  custom,  but  instead  gave  them  to  a  man  upon 
whom  I  W'ished  to  retaliate  because  his  dog  had  bitten 
a  member  of  my  family. 

412 


A  YOUNG  METROPOLIS 

Small  wonder  that  all  golf  clubs  have  extensive  bars ! 
It  is  not  hard  to  understand  why  men  who  realize  that 
they  have  become  incurable  victims  of  the  insidious  habit 
of  golf  should  wish  to  drown  the  thought  in  drink.  But 
in  Birmingham  they  can't  do  it — not,  at  least,  at  bars. 
Alabama  has  beaten  her  public  bars  into  soda  foun- 
tains and  quick-lunch  rooms,  and  though  her  club  bars 
still  look  like  real  ones,  the  drinks  served  are  so  soft  that 
no  splash  occurs  when  reminiscent  tears  drop  into  them. 

\\'hen  we  were  in  Alabama  each  citizen  who  so  de- 
sired was  allowed  by  law  to  import  from  outside  the 
State  a  small  allotment  of  strong  drink  for  personal  use, 
but  the  red  tape  involved  in  this  procedure  had  already 
discouraged  all  but  the  most  ardent  drinkers,  and 
those  found  it  next  to  impossible,  even  by  hoarding  their 
"lonesome  quarts,"  and  pooling  supplies  with  their  con- 
vivial friends,  to  provide  sufficient  alcoholic  drink  for 
a  "real  party." 

We  met  in  Birmingham  but  one  gentleman  whose 
cellars  seemed  to  be  well  stocked,  and  the  tales  of  in- 
genuity and  exertion  by  which  he  managed  to  secure 
ample  supplies  of  liquor  were  such  as  to  lead  us  to  be- 
lieve that  this  matter  had  become,  with  him,  an  occupa- 
tion to  which  all  other  business  must  give  second  place. 

It  was  this  gentleman  who  told  us  that,  since  the  State 
went  dry,  the  ancient  form,  "R.  S.  V.  P.,"  on  social  in- 
vitations, had  been  revised  to  "B.  W.  H.  P.,"  signifying, 
"bring  whisky  in  hip  pocket." 

To  the  "B.  W.  H.  P."  habit  he  himself  strictly  ad- 

413 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

hered.  One  night,  when  we  chanced  lo  niecl  him  in  a 
downtown  chil),  he  drew  a  flask  from  a  hip  pocket,  and 
invited  us  to  "have  something." 

"What  is  it?"  asked  my  companion. 

"Scotch." 

When  my  companion  had  helped  himself  he  passed 
the  flask  to  me,  but  I  returned  it  to  the  owner,  explain- 
ing that  I  did  not  drink  Scotch  whisky. 

"What  do  you  drink?"  he  asked. 

"Bourbon." 

"Here  it  is,"  he  returned,  drawing  a  second  flask  f  rcjm 
the  other  hip  pocket. 

How  well,  too,  do  I  remember  the  long,  delightful 
evening  upon  which  my  companion  and  T  sat  in  an  At- 
lanta club  with  a  group  of  the  older  members,  the  week 
before  Georgia  went  bone  dry.  There,  as  in  Alabama 
before  191 5,  there  had  been  pretended  prohibition,  but 
now  the  bars  of  leading  clubs  were  being  closed,  and 
convivial  men  were  looking  into  tne  future  with  de- 
spair. One  of  the  gentlemen  was  a  justice  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  State,  and  T  remember  his  wistful 
declaration  that  prohibition  would  fall  hardest  upon  the 
older  men. 

"When  a  man  is  young,"  he  said,  "he  can  be  lively  and 
enjoy  himself  without  drinking,  because  he  is  full  of  ani- 
mal spirits.  But  we  older  men  are  n't  bubbling  over 
with  liveliness.  We  can't  dance,  or  don't  want  to,  and 
we  lack  the  stimulus  which  comes  of  falling  continually 
in  love.     My  great  pleasure  is  to  sit  of  an  evening,  here 

414 


A  YOUNG  METROPOLIS 

at  a  table  in  the  cafe  of  this  club,  conversing  with  my 
friends.  That  is  where  prohibition  is  going  to  hurt  me. 
I  shall  not  see  my  old  friends  any  more." 

The  others  protested  at  this  somber  view,  but  the 
judge  gravely  shook  his  head,  saying:  "You  don't  be- 
lieve me,  but  I  know  whereof  I  speak,  for  I  have  been 
through  something  like  this,  in  a  minor  way,  before. 
A  good  many  years  ago  I  was  one  of  a  little  group  of 
congenial  men  to  organize  a  small  club.  We  had  com- 
fortable quarters,  and  we  used  to  drop  in  at  night,  much 
as  we  have  been  doing  of  late  years  here,  and  have  the 
kind  of  talks  that  are  tonic  to  the  soul.  Of  course  we 
had  liquor  in  the  club,  but  there  came  a  time  when,  for 
some  reason  or  other — I  think  it  was  some  trouble  over 
a  license — we  closed  our  bar.  We  didn't  think  it  was 
going  to  make  a  great  difference,  but  it  did.  The  men 
began  to  stop  coming  in,  and  before  long  the  club  ceased 
to  exist. 

"It  won't  be  like  that  here.  This  club  will  go  on. 
But  we  won't  come  here.  We  won't  want  to  sit  around 
a  table,  like  this,  and  drink  ginger  ale  and  sarsaparilla ; 
and  even  if  we  do,  the  talk  won't  be  so  good.  The  thing 
that  makes  me  downcast  is  not  that  liquor  is  going,  but 
that  we  are  really  parting  this  week. 

"Every  one  knows  that  the  abuse  of  drink' does  harm 
in  the  world,  but  these  pious  prohibitionists  are  not  of  the 
temperament  to  understand  how  alcohol  ministers  to  the 
esthetic  side  of  certain  natures.  It  gives  us  better  com- 
panions and  makes  us  better  companions  for  others.     It 

415 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

stimulates  our  minds,  enhances  our  appreciations,  sharp- 
ens our  wit,  loosens  our  tongues,  and  saves  brilliant 
conversation  from  becoming  a  lost  art." 

My  sympathies  went  out  to  the  judge.  It  has  always 
seemed  to  me  a  pity  that  the  liquor  question  has  resolved 
itself  into  a  fight  between  extremists — for  I  think  the 
wine  and  beer  people  might  survive  if  they  were  not  tied 
up  with  the  distillers,  and  I  do  not  believe  that  any  con- 
siderable evil  comes  of  drinking  wine  or  beer. 

Nevertheless  it  must  be  apparent  to  every  one  who 
troubles  to  investigate,  that  prohibition  invariably  works 
great  good  wherever  it  is  made  effective.  Take,  for 
example,  Birmingham. 

There  was  one  year — I  believe  it  was  191 2 — when 
there  was  an  average  of  more  than  one  murder  a  day, 
for  every  working  day  in  the  year,  in  the  county  in 
which  Birmingham  is  located.  On  one  famous  Satur- 
day night  there  were  nineteen  felonious  assaults  (six- 
teen by  negroes  and  three  by  whites),  from  which  about 
a  dozen  deaths  resulted,  two  of  those  killed  having  been 
policemen. 

All  this  has  changed  with  prohibition.  Killings  are 
now  comparatively  rare,  arrests  have  diminished  to  less 
than  a  third  of  the  former  average,  whether  for  grave 
or  petty  offenses,  and  the  receiving  jail,  which  was  for- 
merly packed  like  a  pigpen  every  Saturday  night,  now 
stands  almost  empty,  while  the  city  jail,  which  used 
continually  to  house  from  120  to  150  offenders,  has 
diminished  its  average  population  to  30  or  35. 

416 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 
BUSY  BIRMINGHAM 

THE  fact  that  a  man  may  shut  off  his  motor  and 
coast  downhill  from  his  home  to  his  office  in 
the  lower  part  of  Birmingham,  is  not  without 
symbolism.  Birmingham  is  all  business.  If  I  were  to 
personify  the  place,  it  would  be  in  the  likeness  of  a  man 
I  know — a  big,  powerful  fellow  with  an  honest  blue 
eye  and  an  expression  in  which  self-confidence,  ambi- 
tion, and  power  are  blended.  Like  Birmingham,  this 
man  is  a  little  more  than  forty  years  of  age.  Like  Bir- 
mingham, he  has  built  up  a  large  business  of  his  own. 
And,  like  Birmingham,  he  is  a  little  bit  naive  in  his  pride 
of  success.  His  life  is  divided  between  his  office  and 
his  home,  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  say  for  which  his 
devotion  is  the  greater.  He  talks  business  with  his  wife 
at  breakfast  and  dinner,  and  on  their  Sunday  walks. 
He  brings  his  papers  home  at  night  and  goes  over  them 
with  her,  for,  though  her  specialty  is  bringing  up  the 
children,  she  is  deeply  interested  in  his  business  and 
often  makes  suggestions  which  he  follows.  This  causes 
him  to  admire  her  intensely,  which  he  would  not  neces- 
sarily do  were  she  merely  a  good  wife  and  mother. 

417 


AMERICAN  ADVEXTURES 

He  has  no  hobbies  or  pastimes.  True,  he  plays  golf, 
but  with  him  golf  is  not  a  diversion.  lie  plays  because 
he  finds  the  exercise  increases  his  elhciency  ("efficiency" 
is  perhaps  his  favorite  word),  and  because  many  of  his 
commercial  associates  are  golfers,  and  he  can  talk  busi- 
ness with  them  on  the  links. 

His  house  is  pleasant  and  stands  upon  a  good-sized 
city  lot.  It  is  filled  with  very  shiny  mahogany  furniture 
and  strong-colored  portieres  and  sofa  cushions.  It  is 
rather  more  of  a  house  than  he  requires,  for  his  tastes 
are  simple,  but  he  has  a  feeling  that  he  ought  to  have  a 
large  house,  for  the  same  reason  that  he  and  his  \vile 
ought  to  dress  expensively — that  is,  out  of  respect,  as  it 
were,  to  his  business. 

One  of  his  chief  treasures  is  an  automatic  piano, 
upon  which  he  rolls  off  selections  from  Wagner's  operas. 
He  likes  the  music  of  the  great  German  because,  as  he 
has  often  told  me,  it  stirs  his  imagirlation,  thereby  help- 
ing him  to  solve  business  problems  and  make  business 
plans. 

The  thing  he  most  abhors  is  general  conversation,  and 
he  is  never  so  amusing — so  pathetically  and  uncon- 
sciously amusing — as  when  trying  to  take  part  in  gen- 
eral conversation  and  at  the  same  time  to  conceal  the 
writhings  of  his  tortured  spirit.  There  is  but  one  thing 
which  will  drive  him  to  attempt  the  feat,  and  that  is  the 
necessity  of  making  himself  agreeable  to  some  man,  or 
the  wife  of  some  man,  from  whom  he  washes  to  get  busi- 
ness. 

418 


BUSY  BIRMINGHAM 

The  census  of  19  lo  gave  Birmingham  a  population  of 
132,000,  and  it  is  estimated  that  since  that  time  the  popu- 
lation has  increased  by  50,000.  Birmingham  not  only 
knows  that  it  is  growing,  but  believes  in  trying  to  make 
ready  in  advance  for  future  growth.  It  gives  one  the 
impression  that  it  is  rather  ahead  of  its  housing  prob- 
lems than  behind  them.  Its  area,  for  instance,  is  about 
as  great  as  that  of  Boston  or  Cleveland,  and  its  hotels 
may  be  compared  with  the  hotels  of  those  cities.  If  it 
has  not  so  many  clubs  as  Atlanta,  it  has,  at  least,  all  the 
clubs  it  needs ;  and  if  it  has  not  so  many  skyscrapers  as 
New  York,  it  has  several  which  would  fit  nicely  into  the 
Wall  Street  district.  Moreover,  the  tall  buildings  of 
Birmingham  lose  nothing  in  height  by  contrast  with  the 
older  buildings,  three  or  four  stories  high,  which  sur- 
round them,  giving  the  business  district  something  of 
that  look  which  hangs  about  a  boy  who  has  outgrown 
his  clothing.  Nor  are  the  vehicles  and  street  crowds,  al- 
together in  consonance,  as  yet,  with  the  fine  office  build- 
ings of  the  city,  for  many  of  the  motors  standing  at  the 
curb  have  about  them  that  gray,  rural  look  which  comes 
of  much  mud  and  infrequent  washing,  and  the  idlers 
who  lean  against  the  rich  facades  of  granite  and  marble 
are  entirely  out  of  the  picture,  for  they  look  precisely 
like  the  idlers  who  lean  against  the  wooden  posts  of 
country  railroad  station  platforms. 

Such  curious  contrasts  as  these  may  be  noted  every- 
where. For  instance,  Birmingham  has  been  so  busy 
paving  the  streets  that  it  seems  quite  to  have  forgotten 

419 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

to  put  up  street  signs.  Also,  not  far  from  the  majestic 
Tutwiler  Hotel,  and  the  imposing  apartment  building 
called  the  Ridgely,  the  front  of  which  occupies  a  full 
block,  is  a  park  so  ill  kept  that  it  would  be  a  disgrace 
to  the  city  but  for  the  obvious  fact  that  the  city  is  grow- 
ing and  wide-awake,  and  will,  of  course,  attend  to  the 
park  when  it  can  find  the  time.  Here  arc,  I  believe,  the 
only  public  monuments  Birmingham  contains.  One  is 
a  Confederate  monument  in  the  form  of  an  obelisk,  and 
the  other  two  are  statues  erected  in  memory  of  Mary 
A.  Cahalan,  for  many  years  principal  of  the  Powell 
School,  and  of  William  Elias  B.  Davis,  a  distinguished 
surgeon.  Workers  in  these  fields  are  too  seldom  hon- 
ored in  this  way,  and  the  spirit  which  prompted  the 
erection  of  these  monuments  is  particularly  creditable ; 
sad  to  say,  however,  both  effigies  are  wretchedly  placed 
and  are  in  themselves  exceedingly  poor  things.  Art  is 
something,  indeed,  about  which  Birmingham  has  much 
to  learn.  So  far  as  I  could  discover,  no  such  thing  as  an 
art  museum  has  been  contemplated.  But  here  again  the 
critic  should  remember  that,  whereas  art  is  old,  Bir- 
mingham is  young.  She  is  as  yet  in  the  stage  of  devel- 
opment at  w^hich  cities  think  not  of  art  museums,  but  of 
municipal  auditoriums;  and  with  the  latter  subject,  at 
least,  she  is  now  concerning  herself. 

Even  in  the  city's  political  life  contrasts  are  not  want- 
ing, for  though  the  town  is  Republican  in  sentiment,  it 
proves  itself  southern  by  voting  the  Democratic  ticket, 
and  it  is  interesting  to  note  further  that  the  commission 

420 


BUSY  BIRMINGHAM 

by  which  it  is  governed  had  as  one  of  its  five  members, 
when  we  were  there,  a  Socialist. 

Another  curious  and  individual  touch  is  contributed 
by  the  soda-fountain  lunch  rooms  which  abound  in  the 
city,  and  which,  I  judge,  arrived  with  the  disappear- 
ance of  barroom  lunch  counters.  In  connection  with 
many  of  the  downtown  soda  fountains  there  are  cooking 
arrangements,  and  business  lunches  are  served. 

The  roads  leading  out  of  the  city  in  various  direc- 
tions have  many  dangerous  grade  crossings,  and  acci- 
dents must  be  of  common  occurrence.  At  all  events,  I 
have  never  known  a  city  in  which  cemeteries  and  under- 
taking establishments  were  so  widely  advertised.  In 
the  street  cars,  for  instance,  I  observed  the  cheerful 
placards  of  one  Wallace  Johns,  undertaker,  who 
promises  ''all  the  attention  you  would  expect  from  a 
friend,"  and  I  was  informed  that  Mr.  Johns  possesses 
business  cards  (for  restricted  use  only)  bearing  the  gay 
legend:  "I  '11  get  you  yet!" 

As  to  schools  the  city  is  well  off.  Dr.  J.  H, 
Phillips,  superintendent  of  public  schools,  has  occupied 
his  post  probably  as  long  as  any  school  superintendent  in 
the  country.  He  organized  the  city  school  system  in 
1883,  beginning  with  seven  teachers,  as  against  750  now 
employed.  The  colored  schools  are  reported  to  be  better 
than  in  most  southern  cities. 

Of  the  general  status  of  the  negro  in  Birmingham 
I  cannot  speak  with  authority.  As  in  Atlanta,  negroes 
are  sometimes  required  to  use  separate  elevators  in  of- 

421 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

fice  buildings,  and,  as  everywhere  south  of  Washing- 
ton, the  Birmingham  street  cars  give  one  end  to  whites 
and  the  other  to  negroes.  But  whereas  negroes  use 
the  back  of  the  car  in  Atlanta,  they  use  the  front  in 
Birmingham.  It  was  attempted,  at  one  time,  to  reverse 
this  order,  for  reasons  having  to  do  with  draft  and 
ventilation,  but  the  people  of  Birmingham  had  become 
accustomed  to  the  existing  arrangement  and  objected 
to  the  change.  "After  all,"  one  gentleman  said  to  me, 
in  speaking  of  this  matter,  "it  is  not  important  which 
end  of  the  car  is  given  to  the  nigger.  The  main  point  is 
that  he  must  sit  where  he  is  told." 

The  means  by  which  the  negro  vote  is  eliminated  in 
various  Southern  States  are  generally  similar,  though 
Alabama  has,  perhaps,  been  more  thorough  in  the  mat- 
ter than  some  other  States.  The  importance  of  this 
issue  to  the  southern  white  man  is  very  great,  for  if  all 
negroes  were  allowed  to  vote  the  control  of  certain 
States  would  be  in  negro  hands.  To  the  Southerner 
such  an  idea  is  intolerable,  and  it  is  my  confident  belief 
that  if  the  State  of  Alabama  were  resettled  by  men 
from  Massachusetts,  and  the  same  problems  w^ere  pre- 
sented to  those  men,  they  would  be  just  as  quick  as  the 
w^hite  Alabamans  of  to-day  to  find  means  to  suppress 
the  negro  vote.  With  all  my  heart  I  wish  that  such 
an  exchange  of  citizens  might  temporarily  be  effected, 
for  when  the  immigrants  from  Massachusetts  moved 
back  to  their  native  New  England,  after  an  experience 
of  the  black  belt,  they  would  take  with  them  an  under- 

422 


BUSY  BIRMINGHAM 

standing  of  certain  aspects  of  the  negro  problem 
which  they  have  never  understood;  an  understanding 
which,  had  they  possessed  it  sixty  or  seventy  years  ago, 
might  have  brought  about  the  freeing  of  slaves  by  gov- 
ernment purchase — a  course  which  Lincoln  advo- 
cated and  which  would  probably  have  prevented 
the  Civil  War,  and  thereby  saved  millions  upon 
millions  of  money,  to  say  nothing  of  countless 
lives.  Had  they  even  understood  the  problems  of  the 
South  at  the  end  of  the  Civil  War,  the  horrors  of  Recon- 
struction might  have  been  avoided,  and  I  cannot  too 
often  reiterate  that,  but  for  Reconstruction  we  should 
not  be  perplexed,  to-day,  by  the  unhappy,  soggy  mass 
of  political  inertia  known  as  the  Solid  South. 

I  asked  a  former  State  official  how  the  negro  vote 
had  been  eliminated  in  Alabama.  *'At  first,"  he  said, 
"we  used  to  kill  them  to  keep  them  from  voting;  when 
we  got  sick  of  doing  that  we  began  to  steal  their  bal- 
lots ;  and  when  stealing  their  ballots  got  to  troubling  our 
consciences  we  decided  to  handle  the  matter  legally,  fix- 
ing it  so  they  could  n't  vote." 

I  inquired  as  to  details.     He  explained. 

It  seems  that  in  1901  a  constitutional  convention 
was  held,  at  which  it  was  enacted  that,  in  order  to  be 
eligible  for  life  to  vote,  citizens  must  register  during 
the  next  two  years.  There  were,  however,  certain  qual- 
ifications prescribed  for  registration.  A  man  must  be 
of  good  character,  and  must  have  fought  in  a  war,  or 
be  the  descendant  of  a  person  who  had  fought.     This 

423 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

enactment,  known  as  the  "grandfather  clause,"  went 
far  toward  the  eHmination  of  the  negro.  As  an  addi- 
tional safeguard,  however,  an  educational  clause  was 
added,  but  the  educational  requirement  did  not  become 
effective  at  once,  as  that  would  have  made  illiterate 
whites  ineligible  as  voters.  Not  until  the  latter  were 
safely  registered  under  the  "grandfather  clause,"  was 
the  educational  clause  applied,  and  as,  under  this  clause, 
the  would-be  voter  must  read  and  write  to  the  satisfac- 
tion of  Jiis  examiner,  the  negro's  chance  to  get  suffrage 
was  still  more  reduced. 

The  United  States  Supreme  Court  has,  I  believe,  held 
that  the  educational  clause  does  not  constitute  race  dis- 
crimination. 

As  though  the  above  measures  were  not  sufficient,  it 
is  further  required  that,  in  order  to  vote  at  November 
elections  in  Alabama,  voters  must  pay  a  small  volun- 
tary poll  tax.  This  tax,  however,  must  be  paid  each 
year  before  February  first — that  is,  about  nine  months 
before  elections  actually  take  place.  The  negro  has 
never  been  distinguished  for  his  foresightedness  with  a 
dollar,  and,  to  make  matters  harder  for  him,  this  tax  is 
cumulative  from  the  year  1901,  so  that  a  man  who 
wishes  to  begin  to  vote  this  year,  and  can  qualify  in 
other  respects,  must  pay  a  tax  amounting  to  nearly 
twenty  dollars. 

These  measures  give  Alabama,  as  my  informant  put 
it,  a  "very  exclusive  electorate."  With  a  population 
of  approximately  two  millions,  the  greatest  number  of 

424 


Birmingham  practices  unremittingly  the  pestilential  habit  of  "cutting  in"  at 

dances 


BUSY  BIRMINGHAM 

votes  ever  cast  by  the  State  was  125,000.  Of  this  num- 
ber, 531  votes  were  those  of  negroes,  ''representing"  a 
colored  population  of  840,000! 

The  gentleman  who  explained  these  matters  also  told 
me  a  story  illustrative  of  the  old-time  Southerner's  atti- 
tude toward  the  negro  in  politics. 

During  Reconstruction,  when  Alabama's  Legislature 
was  about  one-third  white  and  two-thirds  negro,  a  fine 
old  gentleman  who  had  been  a  slaveholder  and  was  an 
experienced  parliamentarian,  was  attempting  to  preside 
over  the  Legislature.  In  this  he  experienced  much  diffi- 
culty, his  greatest  bete  noir  being  a  negro  member, 
full  of  oratory,  who  continually  interrupted  other  speak- 
ers. 

Realizing  that  this  was  a  part  of  the  new  order  of 
things,  the  presiding  officer  tried  not  to  allow  his  irri- 
tation to  get  the  better  of  him,  and  to  silence  the  objec- 
tionable man  in  parliamentary  fashion.  "The  member 
will  kindly  come  to  order!"  he  repeated  over  and  over, 
rapping  with  his  gavel.  'The  member  will  kindly  come 
to  order !" 

After  this  had  gone  on  for  some  time  without  effect, 
the  old  gentleman's  patience  became  exhausted.  He 
laid  down  his  gavel,  arose  to  his  feet,  glared  at  the  irre- 
pressible member,  and,  shaking  his  finger  savagely, 
shouted:  "Sit  down,  you  blankety-blank  black  blank- 
ety-blank!" 

Whereupon  the  negro  dropped  instantly  to  his  seat 
and  was  no  more  heard  from. 

425 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 
AN  ALLEGORY  OF  ACHIEVEMENT 

TO  visit  Birmingham  without  seeing  an  iron  and 
steel  plant  would  be  like  visiting  Rome  without 
seeing  the  Forum.  Consequently  my  compan- 
ion and  I  made  application  for  permission  to  go  through 
the  Tennessee  Coal,  Iron,  &  Railroad  Company's 
plant,  at  Ensley,  on  the  outskirts  of  the  city.  When 
the  permission  was  refused  us  w-e  attacked  from  an- 
other angle — using  influence — and  were  refused  again. 
Next  we  called  upon  a  high  official  of  the  company,  and 
(as  we  had,  of  course,  done  in  making  our  previous  re- 
quests for  admission  to  the  plant)  explained  our  errand. 

Though  this  gentleman  received  us  with  the  utmost 
courtesy,  he  declared  that  the  company  desired  no  pub- 
licity, and  plainly  indicated  that  he  was  not  disposed  to 
let  us  into  the  plant. 

*T  '11  tell  you  what  the  trouble  is,"  said  my  compan- 
ion to  me.  ''This  company  is  a  part  of  the  United 
States  Steel  Corporation,  and  in  the  old  muckraking 
days  it  was  thoroughly  raked.  They  think  that  we  have 
come  dow'n  here  full  of  passionate  feeling  over  the  poor, 
downtrodden  workingman  and  the  great,  greedy  oc- 
topus." 

''What  makes  you  think  that  ?" 

426 


AN  ALLEGORY  OF  ACHIEVEMENT 

"Well,  we  are  a  writer  and  an  artist.  Lots  of  writers 
and  artists  have  made  good  livings  by  teaching  maga- 
zine readers  that  it  is  dishonest  for  a  corporation,  or  a 
corporation  official,  to  prosper ;  that  the  way  to  integrity 
is  through  insolvency;  that  the  word  'company'  is  a 
term  of  reproach,  while  'corporation'  is  a  foul  epithet, 
and  'trust'  blasphemy." 

"What  shall  we  do?" 

"We  must  make  it  clear  to  these  people,"  he  said, 
"that  we  have  no  mission.  We  must  satisfy  them  that 
we  are  not  reformers — that  we  did  n't  come  to  dig  out  a 
red-hot  story,  but  to  see  red-hot  rails  rolled  out." 

Pursuing  this  course,  we  were  successful.  All  that 
any  official  of  the  company  required  of  us  w^as  that  we 
be  open-minded.  The  position  of  the  company,  when 
we  came  to  understand  it,  was  simply  that  it  did  not  wish 
to  facilitate  the  work  of  men  who  came  down  with  pen- 
cils, paper,  and  preconceived  "views,"  deliberately  to 
play  the  great  American  game  of  "swat  the  corpora- 
tion." 

Surely  there  is  not  in  the  world  an  industry  which, 
for  sheer  pictorial  magnificence,  rivals  the  modern 
manufacturing  of  steel.  In  the  first  place,  the  scale  of 
everything  is  inexpressibly  stupendous.  To  speak  of  a 
row  of  six  blast  furnaces,  with  mouths  a  hundred  feet 
above  the  ground,  and  chimneys  rising  perhaps  another 
hundred  feet  above  these  mouths,  is  not,  perhaps,  im- 
pressive, but  to  look  at  such  a  row  of  furnaces,  to  see 

427 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

their  fodder  of  ore,  dolomite,  and  coke  brought  in  by 
train  loads;  to  see  it  fed  to  them  by  the  "skip";  to  hear 
them  roar  continually  for  more;  to  feel  the  savage  heat 
generated  within  their  bodies;  to  be  told  in  shouts,  above 
the  din,  something  of  what  is  going  on  inside  these 
vast,  voracious,  savage  monsters,  and  to  see  them  drip- 
ping their  white-hot  blood  when  they  are  picked  by  a 
long  steel  bar  in  the  hands  of  an  atom  of  a  man — this 
is  to  witness  an  almost  terrifying  allegory  of  mankind's 
achievement. 

The  gas  generated  by  blast  furnaces  is  used  in  part  in 
the  hot-blast  stoves — gigantic  tanks  from  which  hot  air, 
at  very  high  pressure,  is  admitted  to  the  furnaces  them- 
selves, and  is  also  used  to  develop  steam  for  the  blow- 
ing engines  and  other  auxiliaries.  In  the  furnaces  the 
molten  iron,  because  of  its  greater  specific  gravity,  set- 
tles to  the  bottom,  while  the  slag  floats  to  the  top.  The 
slag,  by  the  way,  is  not,  as  I  had  supposed,  altogether 
worthless,  but  is  used  for  railroad  ballast  and  in  the 
manufacture  of  cement. 

The  molten  iron  drawn  from  the  blast  furnaces  runs 
in  glittering  rivulets  (which,  at  a  distance  of  twenty 
or  thirty  feet,  burn  the  face  and  the  eyes),  into  ladle  cars 
which  are  like  a  string  of  devils'  soup  bowls,  mounted 
on  railroad  trucks  ready  to  be  hauled  away  by  a  locomo- 
tive and  served  at  a  banquet  in  hell. 

That  is  not  what  happens  to  them,  however.  The 
locomotive  takes  them  to  another  part  of  the  plant,  and 
their  contents,  still  molten,  is  poured  into  the  mixers. 

428 


AN  ALLEGORY  OF  ACHIEVEMENT 

These  are  gigantic  caldrons  as  high  as  houses,  which 
stand  in  rows  in  an  open-sided  steel  shed,  and  the  chief 
purpose  of  them  is  to  keep  the  "soup"  hot  until  it  is 
required  for  the  converters — when  it  is  again  poured  off 
into  ladle  cars  and  drawn  away. 

The  converters  are  in  still  another  part  of  the 
grounds.  They  are  huge,  pear-shaped  retorts,  resem- 
bling in  their  action  those  teakettles  which  hang  on 
stands  and  are  poured  by  being  tilted.  But  a  million 
teakettles  could  be  lost  in  one  converter,  and  the  boiling 
water  from  a  million  teakettles,  poured  into  a  converter, 
would  be  as  one  single  drop  of  ice  water  let  fall  into  a 
red-hot  stove. 

In  the  converters  the  metalloids — silicon,  manganese, 
and  carbon — are  burned  out  of  the  iron  under  a  flaming 
heat  which,  by  means  of  high  air  pressure,  is  brought 
to  a  temperature  of  about  3400  degrees.  It  is  the  blow- 
ing of  these  converters,  and  the  occasional  pouring  of 
them,  which  throws  the  Vesuvian  glow  upon  the  skies 
of  Birmingham  at  night.  The  heat  they  give  off  is  be- 
yond description.  Several  hundred  feet  away  you  feel 
it  smiting  viciously  upon  your  face,  and  the  concrete 
flooring  of  the  huge  shed  in  which  they  stand  is  so  hot  as 
to  burn  your  feet  through  the  soles  of  your  shoes. 

The  most  elaborate  display  of  fireworks  ever  devised 
by  Mr.  Pain  would  be  but  a  poor  thing  compared  with 
the  spectacle  presented  when  a  converter  is  poured. 
The  whole  world  glows  with  golden  heat,  and  is  filled 
with  an  explosion  of  brilliant  sparks,  and  as  the  molten 

429 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

metal  passes  out  into  the  sunlight  that  light  is  by  con- 
trast so  feeble  that  it  seems  almost  to  cast  a  shadow 
over  the  white-hot  vats  of  iron. 

Next  come  the  tilting  open-hearth  furnaces,  where  the 
iron  is  subjected  to  the  action  of  lime  at  a  very  high 
temperature.  This  removes  the  phosphorus  and  leaves 
a  bath  of  commercially  pure  iron  which  is  then  "teemed" 
into  a  hundred-ton  ladle,  wherein  it  is  treated  in  such 
a  way  as  to  give  it  the  properties  required  in  the  fin- 
ished steel.  What  these  properties  may  be,  depends,  of 
course,  upon  the  purpose  to  which  the  steel  is  to  be  put. 
Rails,  for  example,  must,  above  all,  resist  abrasion,  and 
consequently  have  a  higher  carbon  content  than,  say, 
reinforcing  bars  for  concrete  work.  To  obtain  various 
qualities  in  steel  are  added  carbon,  ferro-manganese,  or 
ferro-silicon  in  proportions  differing  according  to  re- 
quirements. 

In  the  next  process  steel  ingots  are  made.  I  lost  track 
of  the  exact  detail  of  this,  but  I  remember  seeing  the 
ingots  riding  about  in  their  own  steel  cars,  turning  to 
an  orange  color  as  they  cooled,  and  I  remember  seeing 
them  pounded  by  a  hammer  that  stood  up  in  the  air 
like  an  elevated  railroad  station,  and  I  know  that  pretty 
soon  they  got  into  the  blooming  mill  and  were  rolled 
out  into  "blooms,"  after  which  they  were  handled  by  a 
huge  contrivance  like  a  thumb  and  forefinger  of  steel 
which — though  the  blooms  weigh  five  tons  apiece — 
picked  them  up  much  as  you  might  pick  up  a  stick  of  red 
candy. 

430 


AN  ALLEGORY  OF  ACHIEVEMENT 

Still  orange-hot,  the  blooms  find  their  way  to  the  roll- 
ing mill,  where  they  go  dashing  back  and  forth  upon 
rollers  and  between  rollers — the  latter  working  in  pairs 
like  the  rollers  of  large  wringers,  squeezing  the  blooms, 
in  their  successive  passages,  to  greater  length  and 
greater  thinness,  until  at  last  they  take  the  form  of  long, 
red,  glowing  rails;  after  which  they  are  sawed  off,  to  the 
accompaniment  of  a  spray  of  white  sparks,  into  rail 
lengths,  and  run  outside  to  cool.  And  I  may  add  that, 
while  there  is  more  brilliant  heat  to  be  seen  in  many 
other  departments  of  the  plant,  there  is  no  department 
in  which  the  color  is  more  beautiful  than  in  the  piles 
of  rails  on  the  cooling  beds — some  of  them  still  red  as 
they  come  from  the  rollers,  others  shading  off  to  rose 
and  pink,  and  finally  to  their  normal  cold  steel-gray. 

Presently  along  comes  a  great  electromagnet;  from 
somewhere  in  the  sky  it  drops  down  and  touches  the 
rails;  when  it  rises  bunches  of  them  rise  with  it,  and, 
after  sailing  through  the  air,  are  gently  deposited  upon 
flat  cars.  Llere,  even  after  the  current  is  shut  off,  some 
of  them  may  try  to  stick  to  the  magnet,  as  though  fearing 
to  go  forth  into  the  world.  If  so,  it  gives  them  a  little 
shake,  whereupon  they  let  go,  and  it  travels  back  to  get 
more  rails  and  load  them  on  the  cars. 

Iron  ore,  coal,  and  limestone,  the  three  chief  materials 
used  in  the  making  of  steel,  are  all  found  in  the  hills 
in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  Birmingham.  I  am  told 
that  there  is  no  other  place  in  the  world  where  the  three 
exist  so  close  together.     That  is  an  impressive  fact,  but 

431 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

one  grows  so  accustomed  to  impressive  facts,  while  pass- 
ing through  this  plant,  that  one  ceases  to  be  impressed, 
becoming  merely  dazed. 

If  I  were  asked  to  mention  one  especially  striking 
item  out  of  all  that  welter,  I  should  think  of  many  things 
— things  having  to  do  with  vastness,  with  gigantic  move- 
ments and  mutations,  with  Niagara-like  noises,  with 
great  bursts  of  flame  suggesting  fallen  fragments  from 
the  sun  itself — but  above  all  I  think  that  T  should  speak 
of  the  apparent  absence  of  men. 

There  were  some  four  thousand  men  in  the  plant,  I 
believe,  at  the  time  we  were  there,  but  excepting  when 
a  shift  changed,  and  a  great  army  passed  out  through 
the  gates,  we  never  saw  a  crowd;  indeed  I  hardly  think 
we  saw  a  group  of  any  size.  Here  and  there  two  or 
three  men  would  be  doing  something — something  which, 
probably,  we  did  not  understand;  in  the  window  of  a 
locomotive  cab,  or  that  of  a  traveling  crane,  we  would 
see  a  man;  we  kept  passing  men  as  we  went  along;  and 
sometimes  as  we  looked  from  a  high  perch  over  the  in- 
terior of  one  of  the  great  sheds,  we  would  be  vaguely 
conscious  of  men  scattered  about  the  place.  But  they 
were  very  small  and  gray  and  inconspicuous  dots  upon 
the  surface  of  great  things  going  on — going  on,  seem- 
ingly by  themselves,  with  a  sort  of  mad,  mechanical,  ma- 
jestic, molten  sweep. 

At  this  time,  when  the  great  efficient  organization 
started  by  Bismarck  is  being  devoted  entirely  to  destruc- 

432 


AN  ALLEGORY  OF  ACHIEVEMENT 

tion,  it  is  interesting  to  recall  that  the  idea  of  indus- 
trial welfare  work  originated  in  Germany  during  the 
period  of  Bismarckian  reorganization.  So,  paradox- 
ically, the  very  forces  which,  on  one  hand,  were  building 
towards  the  new  records  for  the  extinction  of  life  es- 
tablished in  the  present  war,  were,  upon  the  other  hand, 
developing  plans  for  the  safeguarding  of  life  and  for 
making  it  worth  living — plans  which  have  enormously 
affected  the  industrial  existence  of  the  civilized  world. 

The  broad  theory  of  industrial  welfare  work  was 
brought  to  this  country  by  engineers,  chemists,  and 
workmen  who  had  resided  in  Germany;  but,  where  this 
work  developed  over  there  along  cooperative  lines,  it  has 
remained  for  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  to 
work  it  out  in  a  more  individualistic  way. 

In  this  country  welfare  work  has  come  as  a  logical 
part  of  the  general  industrial  development.  The  first 
step  in  this  development  was  the  assembling  of  small, 
weak  industrial  units  into  large,  powerful,  effective  units 
— that  is  to  say,  the  formation  of  great  corporations 
and  trusts.  The  second  step  was  the  coordination  of 
these  great  industrial  alliances  for  "efficiency."  The 
third  step  was  the  achievement  of  material  success. 

When  our  great  corporations  were  in  their  formative 
period,  effort  was  concentrated  on  making  them  success- 
ful, but  with  success  came  thoughts  of  other  things.  It 
began  to  be  seen,  for  example,  that  whereas  the  old 
small  employer  of  labor  came  into  personal  contact  with 
his  handful  of  workmen,  and  could  himself  supervise 

433 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

their  welfare,  some  plan  must  now  be  devised  for  doing 
this  work  in  a  large,  corporate  way. 

Thus  welfare  work  developed  in  the  United  States, 
and  it  is  interesting  to  observe,  now,  that  many  of  our 
great  corporations  are  finding  time  and  funds  to  ex- 
pend upon  purely  aesthetic  improvements,  and  that,  in 
the  construction  of  the  most  modern  American  indus- 
trial plants,  architects,  landscape  gardeners,  and  engi- 
neering men  work  in  co(")peration,  so  that,  instead  of  be- 
ing lopsided,  the  developments  are  harmonious  and 
oftentimes  beautiful. 

On  work  calculated  to  prevent  accidents  in  mines,  not 
only  the  Tennessee  Coal,  Iron,  &  Railroad  Company, 
but  all  the  leading  mining  companies  in  the  State  join 
for  conference.  As  a  result  the  number  of  accidents 
steadily  decreases.  Nine  years  ago  one  man  was  killed, 
on  an  average,  for  every  icx),ooo  tons  of  iron  ore  raised. 
The  record  at  the  time  of  our  visit  was  one  man  to  450,- 
000  tons.  In  the  coal  mines,  where  nine  years  ago  one 
man  was  killed  for  every  75,000  tons  raised,  the  recent 
record  is  one  man  for  650,000  tons. 

In  1914,  126  men  were  killed  in  the  coal  mines  of  Ala- 
bama. In  191 5,  though  the  tonnage  was  about  the 
same,  this  number  was  reduced  to  63,  which  was  a 
record.     All  this  is  the  result  of  safety  work. 

"Aside  from  humane  considerations,"  said  an  official 
of  the  Tennessee  Company,  ''this  concern  realizes  that 
the  man  is  the  most  valuable  machine  it  has." 

This  gentleman  was  one  of  the  ablest  men  we  met 

434 


AN  ALLEGORY  OF  ACHIEVEMENT 

in  the  South.  While  taking  us  through  the  company's 
plant,  and  explaining  to  us  the  various  operations,  he 
was  interesting,  but  the  real  enthusiasm  of  the  man  did 
not  crop  out  until  he  took  us  to  the  company's  villages 
and  showed  us  what  was  being  done  for  the  benefit  of 
operatives  and  their  families,  and,  of  course,  for  the 
benefit  of  the  company  as  well — for  he  was  a  corpora-, 
tion  official  of  the  modern  school,  and  he  knew  that  by 
benefiting  its  men  a  corporation  necessarily  benefits  it- 
self. 

The  story  of  the  Tennessee  Company's  work  among 
its  employees,  which  began  about  five  years  ago,  some 
time  after  the  company  was  taken  over  by  the  United 
States  Steel  Corporation,  is  too  great  to  be  more  than 
touched  on  here.  In  the  department  of  health  thirty- 
six  doctors,  sixteen  nurses,  and  a  squad  of  sanitary  in- 
spectors are  employed.  The  department  of  social  sci- 
ence covers  education,  welfare,  and  horticulture.  To 
me  the  work  of  these  departments  was  a  revelation. 
Each  camp  has  a  first-rate  hospital,  each  has  its  schools 
and  guildhall,  and  everything  is  run  as  only  an  efficiently 
managed  corporation  can  run  things. 

The  Docena  Village  is  less  like  one's  idea  of  a  coal 
"camp"  than  of  a  pretty  suburban  development,  or  a 
military  post,  with  officers'  houses  built  around  a  pa- 
rade. The  grounds  are  well  kept;  there  is  a  tennis 
court  with  vine-clad  trellises  about  it,  a  fine  playground 
for  children,  pretty  brick  walks,  with  splendid  trees  to 
shade  them ;  and  there  is  a  brick  schoolhouse  which  is  a 

435 


AMI'IRICAN  ADVENTURES 

better  building,  belter  equipped,  better  bghted,  and, 
alx)ve  all,  better  ventilated  than  the  schools  1  attended  in 
my  boyhood. 

Near  the  school  is  the  guildhall,  which  is  used  for  re- 
ligious services,  meetings,  and  entertainments.  And 
best  of  all,  perhaps,  the  houses  are  not  the  rows 
of  sad,  unpainted  cabins  one  remembers  having  seen 
in  western  mining  camps,  but  are  pretty  cottages, 
totiched  with  a  slight  architectural  variety,  and  with 
little  variations  of  color,  so  that  each  home  has  indi- 
viduality. 

The  schools  are  financed  partly  by  the  company  and 
partly  by  the  parents  of  the  three  thousand  scholars. 
The  teachers  are,  for  the  most  part,  graduates  of  lead- 
ing colleges — Smith,  Wellesley,  Vassar,  the  University 
of  Chicago,  the  University  of  Wisconsin — and  edu- 
cational work  of  great  variety  is  carried  on,  including 
instruction  in  English  for  foreign  employees,  and  domes- 
tic-science classes  for  women — separate  establishments, 
of  course,  for  whites  and  blacks,  for  the  color  line  is 
drawn  in  southern  mining  camps  as  elsewhere.  Ne- 
groes are,  however,  better  provided  for  by  the  corpora- 
tion than  by  most  southern  municipalities,  both  in  the 
way  of  living  conditions  and  of  education. 

On  the  whole,  I  believe  that  a  child  who  grows  up  in 
the  Docena  Village,  and  is  educated  there,  has  actually 
a  better  chance  than  one  who  grows  up  in  most  Ala- 
bama tow^ns,  or,  for  the  matter  of  that,  in  towns  in 
any  other  State  which  has  not  compulsory  education. 

436 


X 


to 

C 


AN  ALLEGORY  OF  ACHIEVEMENT 

Moreover,  I  doubt  that  there  is  in  all  Alabama  another 
kindergarten  as  truly  charming  as  the  one  we  visited  at 
Docena,  or  that  there  is,  in  the  State,  a  schoolhouse  of 
the  same  size  which  is  as  perfect  as  the  one  we  saw  in 
that  camp. 

In  another  camp  old  houses  have  been  remodeled,  giv- 
ing practical  demonstration  of  what  can  be  done  in  the 
way  of  making  a  hovel  into  a  pretty  home  by  the  intel- 
ligent use  of  a  little  lattice-work,  a  little  paint,  and  a 
few  vines  and  flowers.  Old  boarding-houses  in  this 
neighborhood  have  been  converted  into  community 
houses,  with  entertainment  halls,  shower  baths,  and 
other  conveniences  for  the  men  and  their  families. 
Thus  tests  are  being  made  to  discover  whether  it  is  pos- 
sible to  encourage  among  certain  classes  of  foreign  la- 
borers, whose  habits  of  life  have  not,  to  put  it  mildly, 
been  of  the  tidiest,  some  appreciation  of  the  standard 
of  civilization  represented  by  clean,  pretty  cottages, 
pleasant  meeting  houses,  and  shower  baths. 

I  have  not  told  about  the  billiard  tables,  bowling  al- 
leys, and  game  rooms  of  the  clubs,  nor  about  the  model 
rooms  fitted  up  to  show  housewives  how  they  may  make 
their  homes  attractive  at  but  slight  expense,  nor  about 
the  annual  medical  examination  of  the  children,  nor 
about  the  company  dentists  who  charge  their  patients 
only  for  the  cost  of  gold  actually  used,  nor  about  the 
fine  company  store  at  Edgewater  Mine,  nor  about  the 
excellent  meats  supplied  by  the  company  butchers,  nor 
about  the  low  prices  of  supplies,  nor  about  the  eft'ort  to 

437 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

discourage  employees  from  buying  cheap  furniture  at 
high  prices  on  the  installment  plan,  nor,  above  all,  about 
the  clean,  decent,  happy  look  of  the  families  we  chanced 
to  see. 

Even  had  I  the  space  in  which  to  tell  of  these  things, 
it  is  perhaps  wiser  that  I  refrain  from  doing  so.  For 
I  am  aware  that  in  speaking  anything  but  ill  of  a  great 
corporaton  I  have  scandalously  outraged  precedent. 
Nor  does  it  argue  well  for  my  powers  of  observation, 
or  those  of  my  companion.  I  feel  confident  that  where 
our  limited  visions  perceived  only  prosperity  and  con- 
tentment, certain  of  my  brother  writers,  and  his  brother 
illustrators  w^ould,  in  our  places,  have  rent  the  thin,  va- 
porish veil  of  apparent  corporate  kindliness,  and  found 
such  foul  shame,  such  hideous  malignity,  such  grasping, 
grubby  greed,  such  despicable  soul-destroying  despot- 
ism, as  to  shock  the  simple  nature  of  a  chief  of  the  old- 
time  Russian  Secret  Police. 

It  shames  me  to  think  what  my  friend  Lincoln  Stef- 
fens  could  have  done  had  he  but  enjoyed  my  opportuni- 
ties. It  shames  me  to  think  what  John  Reed  or  other 
gifted  writers  for  "The  Masses"  could  have  done. 
And  I  should  think  that  Wallace  Morgan  would 
writhe  with  shame.  For,  w^here  Art  Young  would  have 
seen  heavy-jowled,  pig-eyed  Capital,  in  a  silk  hat  and 
a  checked  suit,  w^hirling  a  cruel  knout  over  the  broad 
and  noble  (but  bent  and  shuddering)  back  of  Labor — 
where  Boardman  Robinson  w^ould  have  found  a  mother, 
her  white,  drawn  face  half  hidden  by  the  shoddy  shawl 

438 


AN  ALLEGORY  OF  ACHIEVEMENT 

of  black,  to  which  cHng  the  hands  of  her  emaciated 
brood — what  has  Wallace  Morgan  seen  ? 

A  steel-plant  in  operation.  A  company  steel-plant! 
A  corporation  steel-plant !     A  trust  steel-plant. 

Yet  never  so  much  as  a  starving  cat  or  a  pile  of  gar- 
bage in  the  foreground! 


439 


CHAPTER  XL 
THE  ROAD  TO  ARCADY 

BEFORE  we  saw  the  train  which  was  to  take  us 
from  Birmingham  to  Coknnbus,  Mississippi,  we 
began  to  sense  its  quaHty.  When  we  attempted 
to  purchase  parlor  car  seats  of  the  ticket  agent  at  the 
Union  Station  and  were  informed  by  him  that  our  train 
carried  no  parlor  car,  it  seemed  to  us  that  his  manner 
was  touched  with  cynicism,  and  this  impression  was  con- 
firmed by  his  reply  to  our  further  timid  imjuiry  as  to  a 
dining  car : 

"Where  do  you  gentlemen  reckon  you  're  a-goin'  to, 
anyhow  ?" 

Presently  we  passed  through  the  gate  and  belter 
understood  the  nature  of  the  ticket  agent's  thoughts. 
The  train  consisted  of  several  untidy  day  coaches,  the 
first  a  Jim  Crow  car,  the  others  for  white  people. 
The  negro  car  was  already  so  full  that  many  of  its  oc- 
cupants had  to  stand  in  the  aisle,  but  this  did  not  seem 
to  trouble  them,  for  all  were  gabbling  happily,  and  the 
impression  one  got,  in  glancing  through  the  door,  was 
of  many  sets  of  handsome  white  teeth  displayed  in  as 
many   dark   grinning   faces.     There    are    innumerable 

440 


THE  ROAD  TO  ARCADY 

things  for  which  we  cannot  envy  the  negro,  but  neither 
his  teeth  nor  his  good  nature  are  among  them. 

It  was  Saturday  afternoon,  and  the  two  or  three  other 
cars,  though  not  overcrowded,  were  well  filled  with 
people  from  the  neighboring  mining  towns  who  were 
going  home  after  having  spent  the  morning  shopping  in 
the  city.  Almost  all  our  fellow  passengers  carried 
packages,  many  had  infants  with  them,  and  we  were 
struck  with  the  fact  that  the  complexions  of  these  peo- 
ple suggested  a  diet  of  pie — fried  pie,  if  there  be 
such  a  thing — that  a  peculiarly  high  percentage  of 
them  suffered  from  diseases  of  the  eye,  and  that  the  per- 
vading smell  of  the  car  in  which  we  sat  was  of  oranges, 
bananas,  babies,  and  overheated  adults. 

A  young  mother  in  the  seat  in  front  of  us  had  with 
her  three  small  children,  the  youngest  an  infant  in  arms. 
She  was  feeding  a  banana  to  the  second  child,  who 
looked  about  two  years  old.  Behind  us  a  clean,  capable- 
looking  woman  talked  in  a  broad  Scottish  dialect  with 
another  housewife  whose  jargon  was  that  of  the  moun- 
taineers. 

The  region  through  which  the  train  presently  began 
to  wind  its  way  was  green  and  hilly,  and  there  were 
many  stops  at  villages,  all  of  them  mining  camps  ap- 
parently, made  up  of  shabby  little  cabins  scattered  hel- 
ter-skelter upon  the  hillsides.  In  many  of  the  cabin 
doorways  mothers  lingered  with  their  broods  watching 
the  train,  and  on  all  the  station  platforms  stood  crowds 
of  idlers — men,  women,  and  children,  negro  and  white 

441 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

— many  of  the  men  stamped,  by  their  coal-begrimed 
faces,  their  stained  overalls,  and  the  lamps  above  the 
visors  of  their  caps,  as  mine  workers. 

After  a  time  my  companion  and  I  moved  to  the  ex- 
ceedingly dirty  smoking  room  at  the  end  of  the  car, 
where  we  sat  and  listened  to  the  homely  conversation 
of  a  group  of  men  who  seemed  not  only  to  know  one  an- 
other, but  to  know  the  same  people  in  towns  along  the 
line.  Between  stations  they  gossiped,  smoked,  chewed, 
spat,  and  swore  together  like  so  many  New  England 
crossroad  sages,  but  when  the  train  stopped  they  gave 
encouraging  attention  to  the  droll  performances  of  one 
of  their  number,  a  shaggy,  unshaven,  rawboned  man,  of 
middle  age,  gray-haired  and  collarless,  who  sat  near  the 
window  and  uttered  convincing  imitations  of  the  sounds 
made  by  chickens,  roosters,  pigs,  goats,  and  crows. 

The  platform  crowds,  the  negroes  in  particular,  were 
mystified  and  lured  by  this  animal  chorus  coming  from 
a  passenger  coach.  On  hearing  it  they  would  first  gaze 
in  astonishment  at  the  car,  then  edge  up  to  the  windows 
and  doors,  and  peer  in  with  eyes  solemn,  round,  and 
wondering,  only  to  be  more  amazed  than  ever  by  the 
discovery  that  the  car  housed  neither  bird  nor  beast. 
This  bucolic  comedy  was  repeated  at  every  station  until 
we  reached  Wyatt,  Alabama,  where  our  gifted  fellow 
traveler  arose,  pointed  his  collar  button  toward  the  door, 
bade  us  farewell,  and  departed,  saying  that  he  was  going 
to  "walk  over  to  Democrat." 

Presently  the  conductor  dropped  in  for  a  chat,  in  the 

442 


THE  ROAD  TO  ARCADY 

course  of  which  he  informed  the  assembly  that  a  certain 
old  lady  in  one  of  the  towns  along  the  way  had  died 
the  night  before,  whereupon  our  companions  of  the 
smoking  room,  all  of  whom  seemed  to  have  known  the 
old  lady  well,  held  a  protracted  discussion  of  her  history 
and  traits. 

After  a  time  my  companion  and  I  put  in  a  few  ques- 
tions about  the  State  of  Mississippi.  Boiled  down,  the 
principal  information  we  gathered  was  as  follows : 

By  the  1910  census  Mississippi  had  not  one  city  of 
25,000  inhabitants.  Meridian,  with  23,000,  was  (and 
probably  still  is)  her  metropolis,  with  Jackson  and 
Vicksburg,  cities  of  about  20,000  each,  following.  The 
entire  State  has  but  fifteen  cities  having  a  population  of 
5000  or  more,  so  that,  of  a  total  of  about  a  million  and 
three-quarters  of  people  in  the  State  (more  than  half  of 
them  colored),  only  about  one-tenth  live  in  towns  with  a 
population  of  5000  or  over. 

After  a  little  visit  the  conductor  went  away.  Now 
and  then  a  man  would  leave  us  and  get  off  at  a  station, 
or  some  new  passenger  would  join  our  group.  Pres- 
ently I  found  myself  thinking  about  dinner,  and  asked  a 
man  wearing  an  electric-blue  cap  if  he  knew  what  pro- 
vision was  made  for  the  evening  meal. 

Before  he  could  reply  the  train  boy,  who  had  come 
into  the  smoking  room  a  few  minutes  before,  piped  up. 
He  was  a  train  boy  of  a  type  I  had  supposed  extinct :  the 
kind  of  train  boy  one  might  have  encountered  on  almost 
any   second-rate  train   twenty  years   ago. — a  bold,  im- 

443 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

pudent  young  smartaleck,  full  of  insistent  salesmanship 
and  obnoxious  conversation.  He  declared  that  dinner 
was  not  to  be  had,  and  that  the  only  sustenance  available 
en  route  consisted  in  the  uninviting  assortment  of  fruit, 
nuts,  candy,  and  sweet  tepid  beverages  contained  in  his 
basket. 

Fortunately  for  us,  the  man  we  had  addressed  knew 
better. 

"What  do  you  want  to  lie  like  that  for,  boy?"  he  de- 
manded. "You  know  as  well  as  I  do  that  the  brakeman 
takes  on  five  boxes  of  lunch  at  Covin." 

"Well,"  said  the  boy,  with  a  grin,  "I  gotta  sell 
things,  ain't  I  ?  The  brakeman  had  n't  oughta  have 
that  graft  anyhow.  I'd  oughta  have  it.  He  gets 
them  lunches  fer  two  bits  and  sells  'em  for  thirty-five 
cents."  Far  from  feeling  abashed,  he  was  pleased  with 
himself. 

"Folks  is  funny  people,"  remarked  a  man  with  a 
weather-beaten  face  who  sat  in  the  corner  seat,  and 
seemed  to  be  addressing  no  one  in  particular.  "I  know 
a  boy  that 's  going  to  git  hung  some  day.  And  when 
they  've  got  the  noose  rigged  nice  around  his  neck,  and 
everything  ready,  and  the  trap  a-waitin'  to  be  sprung, 
why,  then  that  boy  is  goin'  to  be  so  sorry  for  hisself  that 
he  won't  hardly  know  what  to  do.  He  '11  say :  T  ain't 
never  had  no  chance  in  life,  I  ain't.  The  world  ain't 
never  used  me  right.'  .  .  .  Yes,  folks  is  funny  people." 

After  this  soliloquy  there  occurred  a  brief  silence  in 

444 


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THE  ROAD  TO  ARCADY 

the  smoking  room,  and  presently  the  train  boy  took  up 
his  basket  and  went  upon  his  way. 

"You  say  they  take  on  the  lunches  at  Covin  now?" 
one  of  the  passengers  asked  of  the  man  in  the  electric- 
blue  cap. 

"Yes." 

"What 's  become  of  old  man  Whitney,  over  to  Fay- 
etteville?" 

"They  used  to  git  lunches  off  of  him,"  replied  the 
other,  "but  the  old  man  wasn't  none  too  dependable. 
Now  and  then  he  'd  oversleep,  and  folks  on  the  5  a.  m. 
out  of  Columbus  was  like  to  starve  for  breakfast." 

"Right  smart  shock-headed  boy  the  old  man  's  got," 
put  in  another.  "The  old  man  gives  'im  anything  he 
wants.  He  wanted  a  motorcycle,  and  the  old  man  give 
'im  one.  Then  he  wanted  one  of  them  hot-candy  ma- 
chines; they  cost  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars, 
but  the  old  man  give  it  to  'im  just  the  same." 

"The  kid  went  to  San  Francisco  with  it,  didn't  he?" 
asked  the  man  with  the  electric-blue  cap. 

"He  started  to  go  there,"  replied  the  former  speaker, 
"but  he  only  got  as  fur  as  Little  Rock;  then  he  come  on 
back  home,  and  the  old  man  bought  'im  a  wireless-tele- 
graph plant.  Yeaup!  That  boy  gets  messages  right 
outa  the  air— from  Washington,  D.  C,  and  Berlin,  and 
every  place.  The  Govamunt  don't  allow  'im  to  tell  you 
much  of  it.  He  tells  a  little,  though — just  to  give  you  a 
notion." 

445 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

So,  through  the  live-hour  ride  the  conversation  ran. 
Several  times  the  talk  drifted  to  politics  and  to  the  Euro- 
pean War,  but  the  politics  discussed  were  local  and  lop- 
sided, and  the  war  was  all  too  clearly  regarded  as  some- 
thing interesting  but  vague  and  remote.  On  the  en- 
tire journey  not  one  word  was  spoken  indicating  that  the 
people  of  this  section  had  the  least  grasp  on  any  national 
question,  or  that  they  were  considering  national  ques- 
tions, or  that  they  realized  what  the  war  in  Europe  is 
about — that  it  is  a  war  for  freedom  and  democracy,  a 
war  against  war,  a  war  to  prevent  a  few  individuals 
from  ever  again  plunging  the  world  into  war.  Nor, 
though  the  day  of  our  entry  into  the  war  was  close  at 
hand,  had  the  idea  that  we  might  be  forced  to  take  part 
in  the  conflict  so  much  as  occurred  to  any  of  them. 

They  were  not  stupid  people;  on  the  contrary,  some 
of  them  possessed  a  homely  and  picturesque  philos- 
ophy; but  they  were  not  informed,  and  the  reason  they 
were  not  informed  has  to  do  with  one  of  the  chief  needs 
of  our  rural  population — especially  the  rural  population 
of  the  South. 

What  they  need  is  good  newspapers.  They  need 
more  world  news  and  national  news  in  place  of  county 
news  and  local  briefs.  In  the  whole  South,  moreover, 
there  is  need  for  general  political  news  instead  of  biased 
news  written  always  from  inside  the  Democratic  party, 
and  sandwiched  in  between  patent  medicine  advertise- 
ments. 


446 


CHAPTER  XLI 
A  MISSISSIPPI  TOWN 

IT  was  dark  when,  after  a  journey  of  one  hundred 
and  twenty  miles  at  the  rate  of  twenty  miles  an 
hour,  we  reached  Columbus,  a  city  which  was  never 
intended  to  be  a  metropolis  and  which  will  never  be  one. 

Columbus  is  situated  upon  a  bluff  on  the  east  bank  of 
the  Tombigbee  River,  to  the  west  of  which  is  a  very  fer- 
tile lowland  region,  filled  with  plantations,  the  owners 
of  which,  a  century  ago,  founded  the  town  in  order  that 
their  families  might  have  churches,  schools,  and  the  ad- 
vantages of  social  life.  As  the  town  grew,  a  curious  but 
entirely  natural  community  spirit  developed ;  when  a  gas 
plant,  water  works,  or  hotel  was  needed,  prosperous  citi- 
zens got  together  and  financed  the  enterprise,  not  so 
much  for  profit  as  for  mutual  comfort. 

In  these  ante  bellum  times  the  planters  used  to  make 
annual  journeys  to  Mobile  and  New  Orleans,  going  by 
boat  on  the  Tombigbee  and  taking  their  crops  and  their 
families  with  them.  After  selling  their  cotton  and  en- 
joying themselves  in  the  city,  they  would  load  supplies 
for  the  ensuing  year  upon  river  boats  and  return  to  Co- 
lumbus, where  the  supplies  were  transferred  to  their 
vast  attic  storerooms. 

447 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Though  their  only  water  transportation  was  to  the 
southward,  they  did  not  journey  invariably  in  that  direc- 
tion, but  sometimes  made  excursions  to  such  fashion- 
able watering  places  as  the  Virginia  Springs,  or  Sara- 
toga, to  which  they  drove  in  their  own  carriages. 

When,  in  the  early  days  of  railroad  building,  the  Mo- 
bile &  Ohio  Railroad  was  being  planned,  the  company 
proposed  to  include  Columbus  as  one  of  its  main-line 
points  and  asked  for  a  right  of  way  through  the  town 
and  a  cash  bonus  in  consideration  of  the  benefits  Colum- 
bus would  derive  from  railroad  service.  Both  requests 
were  refused.  The  railroad  company  then  waived  the 
bonus  and  attempted  to  obtain  a  right  of  way  by  pur- 
chase. But  to  no  purpose.  The  citizens  would  not  sell. 
They  did  not  want  a  railroad.  They  were  prosperous 
and  healthy,  and  they  contended  that  a  railroad  would 
bring  poor  people  and  disease  among  them,  besides  kill- 
ing farm  animals  and  causing  runaways.  The  com- 
pany was  consequently  forced  to  make  a  new  survey, 
and  when  the  line  was  built  it  passed  at  a  distance  of  a 
dozen  miles  or  more  from  the  city. 

Gradually  dawned  the  era  of  speed  and  impatience. 
People  who  had  hitherto  been  satisfied  to  make  long 
journeys  in  horse-drawn  vehicles,  and  had  refused  the 
railroad  a  right  of  way,  now  began  to  complain  of  the 
twelve-mile  drive  to  the  nearest  station,  and  to  suggest 
that  the  company  build  a  branch  line  into  the  town. 
But  this  time  it  was  the  railroad's  turn  to  say  no,  and 
Columbus  was  informed  that   if  it  wished  a  branch 

448 


A  MISSISSIPPI  TOWN 

line  it  could  go  ahead  and  build  it  at  its  own  expense. 
This  was  finally  done  at  a  cost  of  fifty  thousand 
dollars. 

With  the  constructon  of  the  branch  line,  carriages 
fell  into  disuse  and  dilapidation,  and  many  an  old 
barouche,  landau,  and  brett  passed  into  the  hands  of 
the  negro  hackmen  who  were  former  slaves  of  the  old 
families.  Among  these  ex-slaves  the  traditions  of  the 
first  families  of  Columbus  were  upheld  long  after  the 
war,  and  it  thus  happened  that  when,  a  few  years  since, 
a  young  New  Yorker,  arriving  for  a  visit  in  the  town, 
alighted  from  his  train,  he  was  greeted  by  an  ancient 
negro  who,  indicating  an  equally  ancient  carriage,  cried : 
"Hack,  suh!  Hack,  suh!  Ain't  nevah  been  rid  in  by 
none  but  the  Billupses." 

Not  every  young  man  from  the  North  would  have 
understood  this  reference,  but  by  a  coincidence  it  was  at 
the  residence  of  Mrs.  Billups  that  this  one  had  come 
to  visit. 

Neither  as  to  hack  nor  habitation  were  my  companion 
and  I  so  fortunate  as  the  earlier  visitor.  Our  convey- 
ance was  a  Ford,  and  the  driver  warned  us,  as  we  pro- 
gressed through  shadowy  tree-bordered  streets,  that  the 
Gilmer  Hotel  was  crowded  with  delegates  who  had  come 
to  attend  the  State  convention  of  the  Order  of  the  East- 
ern Star.  Nor  was  his  warning  without  foundation. 
The  wide  old-fashioned  lobby  of  the  Gilmer  was  hung 
with  the  colors  of  the  Order  and  packed  with  Ladies 
of  the   Eastern  Star  and  their  ecstatic   families;   we 

449 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

managed  to  make  our  way  through  the  press  only  to  be 
told  by  the  single  worn-out  clerk  un  duty  that  not  a  room 
was  to  be  had. 

Unlike  the  haughty  clerk  who  had  dismissed  us  from 
the  Tutwiler  Hotel  in  Birmingham,  the  clerk  at  the 
Gilmer  was  not  without  the  (juality  of  mercy.  Over- 
worked though  he  was,  he  began  at  once  to  telephone 
about  the  town  in  an  effort  to  secure  us  rooms.  But  if 
this  led  us  to  conclude  that  our  problem  \vas  thereby  in 
effect  solved,  we  discovered,  after  listening  to  his  brief 
telephonic  conversatons  wth  a  series  of  unseen  ladies, 
that  the  conclusion  was  premature.  Though  there 
were  vacant  rooms  in  several  private  houses,  strange 
stray  males  w-ere  not  desired  as  lodgers. 

Concerned  as  we  were  over  our  plight,  my  companion 
and  I  could  not  help  being  aware  that  a  young  lady  who 
had  been  standing  at  the  desk  when  we  came  in,  and 
had  since  remained  there,  was  taking  kindly  interest  in 
the  situation.  Nor,  for  the  matter  of  that,  could  we 
help  being  aware,  also,  that  she  was  very  pretty  in  her 
soft  black  dress  and  corsage  of  narcissus.  She  did  not 
speak  to  us ;  indeed,  she  hardly  honored  us  with  a  glance ; 
but,  despite  her  sweet  circumspection,  w^e  sensed  in  some 
subtle  way  that  she  w^as  sorry  for  us,  and  were  cheered 
thereby. 

After  a  time,  when  the  clerk  seemed  to  have  reached 
the  end  of  his  resources,  the  young  lady  hesitantly  ven- 
tured some  suggestions  as  to  other  houses  w^here  rooms 
might    possibly   be    had.     These    suggestions    she    ad- 

450 


A  MISSISSIPPI  TOWN 

dressed  entirely  to  the  clerk — who,  upon  receiving  them, 
did  more  telephoning. 

''Have  you  tried  Mrs.  Eichelberger  ?"  the  young  lady 
asked  him,  after  several  more  failures. 

He  had  not,  but  promptly  did  so.  His  conversation 
with  Mrs.  Eichelberger  started  promisingly,  but  pres- 
ently we  heard  him  make  the  damning  admission  he  had 
been  compelled  repeatedly  to  make  before : 

''No,  ma'am.     It 's  two  men." 

Then,  just  as  the  last  hope  seemed  to  be  fading,  our 
angel  of  mercy  spoke  again. 

"Wait!"  she  put  in  impulsively.  "Tell  her— tell  her 
I  recommend  them." 

Thus  informed,  Mrs.  Eichelberger  became  compliant; 
but  when  the  details  were  arranged,  and  we  turned  to 
thank  our  benefactor,  she  had  fled. 

Mrs.  Eichelberger's  house  was  but  a  few  blocks  dis- 
tant from  the  Gilmer.  She  installed  us  in  two  large, 
comfortable  rooms,  remarking,  as  we  entered,  that  we 
had  better  hurry,  as  we  were  already  late. 

"Late  for  what?"  one  of  us  asked. 

"Didn't  you  come  for  the  senior  dramatics?" 

"Senior  dramatics  where?" 

"At  the  I.  I.  and  C." 

"What  is  the  I.  I.  and  C?" 

At  this  question  a  look  of  doubt,  if  not  suspicion, 
crossed  the  lady's  face. 

"Where  are  you-all  from?"  she  demanded. 

The  statement  that  we  came  from  New  York  seemed 

451 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

to  explain  satisfactorily  our  ignorance  of  the  I.  I.  and 
C.  Evidently  Mrs.  Eichelberger  expected  little  of  New 
Yorkers.  The  I.  I.  and  C,  she  explained,  was  the 
Mississippi  Industrial  Institute  ?'">d  College,  formerly 
known  as  the  Female  College,  a  State  institution  for 
young  women ;  and  the  senior  dramatics  were  even  then 
in  progress  in  the  college  chapel,  just  up  the  street. 

To  the  chapel,  therefore,  my  companion  and  I  re- 
paired as  rapidly  as  might  be,  guided  thither  by  frequent 
sounds  of  applause. 

From  among  the  seniors  standing  guard  in  cap  and 
gown  at  the  chapel  door,  the  quick  artistic  eye  of  my 
companion  selected  a  brown-eyed  auburn-haired  young 
goddess  as  the  one  from  whom  tickets  might  most  ap- 
propriately be  bought.  Nor  did  he  display  thrift  in  the 
transaction.  Instead  of  buying  modest  quarter  seats 
he  magnificently  purchased  the  fifty-cent  kind. 

The  dazzling  ticket  seller,  transformed  to  usher,  now 
led  us  into  the  crowded  auditorium  and  down  an  aisle. 
A  few  rows  from  the  stage  she  stopped,  and,  fastening  a 
frigid  gaze  upon  two  hapless  young  women  who  were 
seated  some  distance  in  from  the  passageway,  bade  them 
emerge  and  yield  their  place  to  us. 

Of  course  we  instantly  protested,  albeit  in  whispers, 
as  the  play  was  going  on.  But  the  beautiful  Olympian 
lightly  brushed  aside  our  objectons. 

"They  don't  belong  here,"  she  declared  loftily. 
"They  're  freshmen — and  they  only  bought  quarter 
seats." 

452 


A  MISSISSIPPI  TOWN 

Then,  as  the  guilty  pair  seemed  to  hesitate,  she  sum- 
moned them  with  a  compelHng  gesture  and  the  com- 
mand:    "Come  out!" 

At  this  they  arose  meekly  enough,  whereupon  we  re- 
doubled our  protests.  But  to  no  purpose.  The  Titian- 
tinted  creature  was  relentless.  Our  pleas  figured  no 
more  in  her  scheme  of  things  than  if  they  had  been  bab- 
blings in  an  unknown  tongue.  To  add  to  our  discomfit- 
ure, a  large  part  of  the  audience  seemed  to  have  per- 
ceived the  nature  of  our  dilemma,  and  was  giving  us 
amused  attention. 

It  was  a  crisis ;  and  in  a  crisis — especially  one  in  which 
a  member  of  the  so-called  gentle  sex  is  involved — I  have 
learned  to  look  to  my  companion.  He  understands 
women.  He  has  often  told  me  so.  And  now,  by  his 
action,  he  proved  it.  What  he  did  was  to  turn  and  flee, 
and  I  fied  with  him;  nor  did  we  pause  until  we  were 
safely  hidden  away  in  humble  twenty-five  cent  seats  at 
the  rear  of  the  chapel,  in  the  shadow  of  the  overhanging 
gallery. 

It  is  not  my  intention  to  write  an  extended  criticism 
of  the  performance.  For  one  thing,  I  witnessed  only  a 
fragment  of  it,  and  for  another,  though  I  once  acted  for 
a  brief  period  as  dramatic  critic  on  a  New  York  news- 
paper, I  was  advised  by  my  managing  editor  to  give  up 
dramatic  criticism,  and  I  have  followed  his  advice. 

The  scene  evidently  represented  a  room,  its  walls 
made  of  red  screens  behind  which  rose  the  lofty  pipes  of 
the  chapel  organ.     On  a  pedestal  at  one  side  stood  a  bust 

453 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

of  the  Venus  de  Milo,  while  on  the  other  hung  an  en- 
graving of  a  famiHar  picture  which  I  beHeve  is  called 
"The  Fates,"  and  which  has  the  appearance  of  having 
been  painted  by  some-one-or-other  like  Leighton  or 
Bouguereau  or  Harold  Bell  Wright. 

After  we  had  given  some  attention  to  the  play  my 
companion  remarked  that,  from  the  dialect,  he  judged 
it  to  be  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin."  I  had  been  told,  how- 
ever, that  for  certain  reasons  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  is 
never  played  in  the  South;  I  therefore  asked  the  young 
man  in  front  of  me  what  play  it  was.  He  replied  that 
it  was  Booth  Tarkington  and  Harry  Leon  Wilson's 
comedy,  "The  Man  From  Home,"  and  as  he  made  the 
statement  openly,  I  feel  that  I  am  violating  no  confidence 
in  repeating  what  he  said — especially  since  his  declara- 
tion was  supported  by  the  program  which  he  showed  me. 

He  was  a  pleasant  young  man.  Perceiving  that  I 
was  a  stranger,  he  volunteered  the  additional  informa- 
tion that  the  masculine  roles,  as  well  as  the  feminine 
ones,  were  being  played  by  girls ;  and  I  trust  that  I  will 
not  seem  to  be  boasting  of  perspicacity  when  I  declare 
that  there  had  already  entered  my  mind  a  suspicion  that 
such  was  indeed  the  case. 

Behold  them !  Gaze  upon  the  character  called  Daniel 
Voorhees  Pike!  See  w-hat  long  strides  he  takes,  and 
with  what  pretty  tiny  feet !  Observe  the  manliness  with 
which  he  thrusts  his  pink  little  hands  deep  in  the  pockets 
of  his — or  somebody's — pantaloons! 

Look  at  the  Grand  Duke  Vasili  of  Russia,  his  sweet 

454 


A  MISSISSIPPI  TOWN 

oval  face  and  rosy  mouth  partly  obscured  by  mustache 
and  goatee  of  a  most  strange  wooliness. 

Observe  the  ineradicable  daintiness  of  the  Honorable 
Almeric  St.  Aubyn,  but  more  particularly  attend  to  that 
villain  of  helpless  loveliness,  the  Earl  of  Hawcastle. 
The  frightful  life  which,  it  is  indicated,  the  Earl  has  led, 
leaves  no  tell-tale  marks  upon  his  blooming  countenance. 
His  only  facial  disfigurement  consists  in  a  mustache 
which,  by  reason  of  its  grand-ducal  lanateness,  seems 
to  hint  at  a  mysterious  relationship  between  the  British 
and  Russian  noblemen. 

Take  note,  moreover,  of  the  outlines  of  the  players. 
If  ever  earl  was  belted  it  was  this  one.  If  ever  duke 
in  evening  dress  revealed  delectable  convexities  of  fig- 
ure, it  was  this  duke.  If  ever  worthy  male  from  In- 
diana spoke  in  a  soprano  voice  and  was  lithe,  alluring, 
and  recurvous,  she  was  Daniel  Voorhees  Pike. 

A  young  woman  seated  near  us  described  to  her  es- 
cort the  personal  characteristics  of  the  various  young 
ladies  on  the  stage,  and  when  we  heard  her  call  one  girl 
who  played  in  a  betrousered  part,  "a.  perfect  darling," 
we  echoed  inwardly  the  sentiment.  All  were  darlings. 
And  this  especial  "perfect  darling"  appeared  as  well  to 
be  a  "perfect  thirty-six." 

The  Earl  was  my  undoing.  At  a  critical  point  in 
the  unfolding  of  the  plot  there  was  talk  of  his  having 
been  connected  with  a  scandal  in  St.  Petersburg. 
This  he  attempted  to  deny,  and  though  T  am  unable 
to  quote  the  exact  words  of  his  denial,  the  sound  of  it 

455 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

lingers  sweetly  in  my  memory.  Nor  would  the  exact 
words,  could  I  give  them,  convey,  in  print,  the  quality 
of  what  was  said,  for  the  Earl,  and  all  the  rest,  spoke  in 
the  soft,  melodious  tones  of  Mississippi. 

"What  you-all  fussin'  raound  heah  for,  this  mown- 
in'?"  That,  perhaps,  conveys  some  sense  of  a  line  he 
spoke  on  entering. 

And  when,  in  reply,  one  of  the  others  mentioned 
the  scandal  at  St.  Petersburg,  the  flavor  of  the  Earl's 
retort,  as  its  cooing  tones  remain  with  me,  was 
this  : 

"Wha',  honey!  What  you-all  mean  hintin'  raound 
'baout  St.  Petuhsbuhg?  I  reckon  you  don'  know  what 
you  talkin'  'baout !  Ah  nevuh  was  in  that  taown  in  all 
ma  bo'n  days!" 

What  followed  I  am  unable  to  relate,  for  the  Earl's 
speech  caused  me  to  become  emotional,  and  my  com- 
panion, after  informing  me  severely  that  I  was  making 
myself  conspicuous,  removed  me  from  the  chapel. 

The  auburn  goddess  was  still  on  duty  at  the  door  as 
we  went  out.  Advancing,  she  placed  in  each  of  our 
hands  a  quarter.  I  regret  to  say  that,  in  my  shaken 
state,  I  misinterpreted  this  action. 

''Oh,  no!  Please!"  I  protested,  fearing  that  she 
thought  we  had  not  enjoyed  the  performance,  and  was 
therefore  returning  our  m.oney.  'Tt  really  was  n't  bad 
at  all.  Y\^t  're  only  going  because  w^e  have  an  engage- 
ment." 

456 


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13- 


A  MISSISSIPPI  TOWN 

"Be  quiet!"  interrupted  my  companion  in  a  savage 
undertone,  jerking  me  along  by  the  arm.  "It 's  only  a 
rebate  on  the  seats!"  And  without  allowing  me  a 
chance  to  set  myself  right  he  dragged  me  out. 


457 


M 


CHAPTER  XLII 

OLD  TALES  AND  A  NEW  GAME 

RS.  EICHELBERGER  supplied  us  merely 
with  a  place  to  sleep.  For  meals  she  referred 
us  to  a  lady  who  lived  a  few  doors  up  the  street. 
But  when  in  the  morning  we  went,  full  of  hunger  and  of 
hope,  to  the  house  of  this  lady,  we  were  coldly  informed 
that  breakfast  was  over,  and  were  recommended  to  the 
Bell  Cafe,  downtown. 

My  companion  and  T  are  not  of  that  robust  breed 
which  enjoys  a  bracing  walk  before  its  morning  coffee, 
and  the  fact  that  the  streets  of  Columbus  charmed  us, 
as  we  now  saw  them  for  the  first  time  by  daylight,  is 
proof  enough  of  their  quality.  There  is  but  little  appe- 
tite for  beauty  in  an  empty  stomach. 

The  streets  were  splendidly  wide,  and  bordered  with 
fine  old  trees,  and  the  houses,  each  in  its  own  lawn,  each 
with  its  vines  and  shrubs,  were  full  of  the  suggestion  of 
an  easy-going  home  life  and  an  informal  hospitality. 
Most  of  them  were  of  frame  and  in  their  architecture 
illustrated  the  decadence  of  the  eighties  and  nineties, 
but  here  or  there  was  a  fine  old  brick  homestead  with 
a  noble  columned  portico,  or  a  formal  Georgian  house, 
disposed  among  beautiful  trees  ahd  gardens  and  shel- 

458 


OLD  TALES  AND  A  NEW  GAME 

tered  from  the  street  by  an  ancient  hedge  of  box.  So, 
though  Cohimbus  is,  as  I  have  indicated,  not  too  easily 
reached  by  rail,  and  though,  as  I  have  further  indicated, 
walks  before  breakfast  are  not  to  my  taste,  I  am  com- 
pelled to  say  that  for  both  the  journey  and  the  walk  I 
felt  repaid  by  the  sight  of  some  of  the  old  houses — the 
Baldwin  house,  the  W.  D.  Humphries  house,  the  J.  O. 
Banks  house,  the  old  McLaren  house,  the  Kinnebrew 
house,  the  Thomas  Hardy  house,  the  J.  M.  Morgan 
house,  with  its  garden  of  lilies  and  roses,  its  giant  mag- 
nolia trees  and  its  huge  camellia  bushes;  and  most  of  all, 
perhaps,  for  its  Georgian  beauty,  the  mellow  tone  of  its 
old  brick,  its  rich  tangle  of  southern  growths,  and  its 
associations,  the  venerable  mansion  of  the  late  General 
Stephen  D.  Lee,  C.  S.  A. — now  the  property  of  the  lat- 
ter's  only  son,  Mr.  Blewett  Lee,  general  counsel  of  the 
Illinois  Central  Railroad,  and  a  resident  of  Chicago. 

It  was  apropos  of  our  visit  to  the  Lee  house  that  I  was 
told  of  a  dramatic  and  touching  example  of  the  rebirth 
of  amity  between  North  and  South. 

Stephen  D.  Lee  it  was  who,  as  a  young  artillery  of- 
ficer attached  to  the  stafif  of  General  Beauregard,  trans- 
mitted the  actual  order  to  fire  on  Fort  Sumter,  the  shot 
which  began  the  war.  Two  years  later,  having  been 
promoted  to  the  rank  of  lieutenant-general,  the  same 
Stephen  D.  Lee  participated  in  the  defense  of  Vicks- 
burg  against  the  assaults  of  Porter's  gunboats  from  the 
river  and  of  Grant's  armies,  which  hemmed  in  the  hilled 
city  on  landward  side,  until  at  last,  on  the  4th  of  July, 

459 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

1863,  the  place  was  surrendered,  making  Grant's  fame 
secure. 

Years  after,  when  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  accepted  a  statue  of  General  Stephen  D.  Lee,  to 
be  placed  upon  the  battle  ground  of  Vicksburg — now  a 
national  park — it  was  the  late  (General  Frederick  Dent 
Grant,  son  of  the  capturer  of  the  city,  who  journeyed 
thither  to  unveil  the  memorial  to  his  father's  former 
foe.  And  by  a  peculiarly  gracious  and  fitting  set  of  cir- 
cumstances it  came  about  that  when,  in  April  last,  the 
ninety-fifth  anniversary  of  the  birth  of  U.  S.  Grant 
was  celebrated  in  his  native  city,  Galena,  Illinois,  it  was 
Blewett  Lee,  only  son  of  the  general  taken  by  Grant  at 
A^icksburg,  who  journe3^ed  to  Galena  and  there  in  a 
memorial  address,  returned  the  earlier  compliment  ])aid 
to  the  memory  of  his  own  father  by  Grant's  son. 

Columbus  may  perhaps  appreciate  the  charm  of  its 
old  homes,  but  there  is  evidence  to  show  that  it  did  not 
appreciate  certain  other  weatherworn  structures  of 
great  beauty.  I  have  seen  photographs  of  an  old  Bap- 
tist Church  wath  a  fine  (and  not  at  all  Baptist-looking) 
portico  and  fluted  columns,  which  was  torn  down  to 
make  room  for  the  present  stupidly  commonplace  Bap- 
tist church ;  and  I  have  seen  pictures  of  the  beautiful  old 
town  hall  which  was  recently  supplanted  by  an  igno- 
rantly  ordinary  town  building  of  yellow  pressed  brick. 
The  destruction  of  these  two  early  buildings  represents 
an  irreparable  loss  to  Columbus,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped 

460 


OLD  TALES  AND  A  NEW  GAME 

that  the  town  will  some  day  be  sufficiently  enlightened 
to  know  that  this  is  true  and  to  regret  that  it  did 
not  restore  and  enlarge  them  instead  of  tearing  them 
down. 

Until  a  decade  or  two  ago  Columbus  had,  so  far  as  I 
can  learn,  but  four  streets  possessing  names:  Main 
Street,  Market  Street,  College  Street,  and  Catfish  Alley, 
all  other  streets  being  known  as  ''the  street  that  Mrs. 
Billups,  or  Mrs.  Sykes,  or  Mrs.  Humphries,  or  Mrs. 
Some-one-else  lives  on." 

Market  and  Main  are  business  streets — at  least  they 
are  so  where  they  cross — and,  like  the  other  streets,  are 
wide.  They  are  lined  with  brick  buildings  few  if  any  of 
them  more  than  three  stories  in  height,  and  it  was  in 
one  of  these  buildings,  on  Main  Street,  that  we  found  the 
Bell  Cafe — advertised  as  "the  most  exclusive  cafe  in 
the  State." 

Being  in  search  of  breakfast  rather  than  exclusive- 
ness,  we  did  not  sit  at  one  of  the  tables,  but  at  the  long 
lunch  counter,  where  we  were  quickly  served. 

After  breakfast  we  felt  strong  enough  to  look  at  pic- 
ture post  cards,  and  to  that  end  visited  first  "Cheap 
Joe's"  and  then  the  shop  of  Mr.  Divilbis,  where  news- 
papers, magazines,  sporting  goods,  cameras,  and  all 
such  things,  are  sold.  Having  viewed  post  cards  pic- 
turing such  scenes  as  "Main  Street  looking  north," 
"The  1st  Baptist  Church,"  and  "Steamer  America, 
Tombigbee  River,"  we  were  about  to  depart,  when  our 
attention  was  drawn  to  a  telephonic  conversation  which 

461 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

had  started  between  Mr.  Divilbis's  clerk  and  a  customer 
who  was  thinking  of  going  in  for  the  game  of  lawn 
tennis.  The  half  of  the  conversation  which  was  audible 
to  us  proved  entertaining,  and  we  dallied,  eavesdrop- 
ping. 

The  clerk  began  by  recommending  tennis.  "Yes,"  he 
said,  ''that  would  be  very  nice.  Everybody  is  playing 
tennis  now." 

But  that  got  him  into  trouble,  for  after  a  pause  he 
said:  ''J  'm  sorry  I  can't  tell  you  everything  about  it. 
I  don't  play  tennis  myself.  Al  could  tell  you,  though. 
He  plays." 

Then,  after  a  much  longer  pause:  "Well,  ma'am, 
you  see,  in  a  game  of  lawn  tennis  everybody  owns  their 
own  racquet." 

At  this  juncture  a  tall,  thin  man  in  what  is  known 
(excepting  at  Palm  Beach)  as  a  "Palm  Beach  suit," 
entered  the  shop  and  the  clerk  asked  his  inquisitor  to 
hold  the  wire  while  he  made  some  inquiries.  After  a 
long  conversation  with  the  new  arrival  he  returned  to 
the  telephone  and  resumed  his  explanation. 

"Well,  you  see,  they  have  a  net,  and  one  stands  on  one 
side  and  one  on  the  other — yes,  ma'am,  there  can  be  two 
on  each  side — and  one  serves.  What?  Yes,  he  hits 
the  ball  over  the  net,  and  it  has  to  go  in  the  opposite 
court  on  the  other  side,  and  then  if  that  one  does  n't 
send  it  back —  Yes,  the  court  is  marked  with  lines — 
why,  that  counts  fifteen.  The  next  count  is  thirty. 
What?     No,  ma'am,  I  don't  know  why  they  count  that 

462 


OLD  TALES  AND  A  NEW  GAME 

way.  No,  it 's  just  the  way  they  do  in  lawn  tennis.  If 
your  opponent  has  nothing,  why,  they  call  that  'love.' 
Yes,  that 's  it — 1-o-v-e — just  the  same  as  when  any- 
body 's  in  love.  No,  ma'am,  I  don't  know  why.  .  .  . 
So  that 's  the  way  they  count. 

''No,  ma'am,  the  lines  are  boundaries.  You  have  to 
stand  in  a  certain  place  and  hit  the  ball  in  a  certain 
place.  .  .  .  No,  I  don't  mean  that  way.  You  Ve  got  to 
hit  it  so  it  lands  in  a  certain  place ;  and  the  one  that 's 
playing  against  you  has  to  hit  it  back  in  a  certain  place, 
and  if  it  goes  in  some  other  place,  then  you  can't  play  it 
any  more.  Oh,  no!  Not  all  day.  I  mean  that  ends 
that  part,  and  you  start  over.  You  just  keep  on  doing 
like  that." 

But  though  it  was  apparent  that  he  considered  his 
explanation  complete,  the  lady  at  the  other  end  of  the 
wire  was  evidently  not  yet  satisfied,  and  as  he  began  to 
struggle  with  more  questions  we  left  the  shop  and  went 
to  the  Gilmer  Hotel  to  see  if  any  mail  had  come  for  us. 

The  Gilmer  was  built  by  slave  labor  some  years  be- 
fore the  war,  and  was  in  its  day  considered  a  very 
handsome  edifice.  Nor  is  it  to-day  an  unsatisfactory 
hotel  for  a  town  of  the  size  of  Columbus.  Its  old  brick 
walls  are  sturdy,  and  its  rooms  are  of  a  fine  spacious- 
ness. Downstairs  it  has  been  somewhat  remodeled, 
but  the  large  parlor  on  the  second  floor  is  much  as  it  was 
in  the  beginning,  even  to  the  great  mirrors  and  the 
carved  furniture  imported  more  than  sixty  years  ago 
from  France.     Most  of  the  doors  still  have  the  old  locks, 

463 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

and  the  window  cords  originally  installed  were  of  such 
a  quality  that  they  have  not  had  to  be  renewed. 

The  Gilmer  was  still  new  when  the  Battle  of  Shiloh 
was  fought,  and  several  thousand  of  the  wounded  were 
brought  to  Columbus.  The  hotel  and  various  other 
buildings,  including  that  of  the  former  Female  Insti- 
tute, were  converted  into  hospitals,  as  were  also  many 
private  houses  in  the  town. 

Though  there  was  never  fighting  at  Columbus,  the 
end  of  the  war  found  some  fifteen  hundred  soldiers' 
graves  in  Friendship  Cemetery,  perhaps  twoscore  of  the 
number  being  those  of  Federals.  The  citizens  were,  at 
this  time,  too  poor  and  too  broken  in  spirit  to  erect 
memorials,  but  several  ladies  of  Columbus  made  it  their 
custom  to  visit  the  cemetery  and  care  for  the  graves  of 
the  Confederate  dead.  This  movement,  started  by  indi- 
viduals— Miss  Matt  Moreton,  Mrs.  J.  T.  Fontaine,  and 
Mrs.  Green  T.  Hill — was  soon  taken  up  by  other  ladies 
of  the  place  and  resulted  in  a  determination  to  make  the 
decoration  of  soldiers'  graves  an  annual  occurrence. 

In  an  old  copy  of  the  "Mississippi  Index,"  published 
at  the  time,  may  be  found  an  account  of  the  solemn  march 
of  the  women,  young  and  old,  to  the  cemetery,  on  April 
25,  1866 — one  year  after  Robert  E.  Lee's  surrender — 
and  of  the  decoration  of  the  graves  not  only  of  Con- 
federate but  of  Federal  soldiers.  It  is  the  proud  boast 
of  Columbus  that  this  occasion  constituted  the  first  cele- 
bration of  the  now  national  Decoration  Day — or,  as  it  is 
more  properly  called,  IMemorial  Day. 

464 


O  rt 

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lU'i^     i,ri.^. 


OLD  TALES  AND  A  NEW  GAME 

It  should  perhaps  be  said  here  that  Columbus,  Geor- 
gia, disputes  the  claim  of  Columbus,  Mississippi,  as  to 
Memorial  Day.  In  the  Georgia  city  it  is  contended  that 
the  idea  of  decorating  soldiers'  graves  originated  with 
Miss  Lizzie  Rutherford,  later  Mrs.  Roswell  Ellis,  of 
that  place.  The  inscription  of  Mrs.  Ellis'  monument  in 
Linwood  Cemetery,  Columbus,  Georgia,  states  that  the 
idea  of  Memorial  Day  originated  with  her. 

It  seems  clear,  however,  that  the  same  idea  occurred 
to  women  in  both  cities  simultaneously,  and  that,  while 
the  actual  celebration  of  the  day  occurred  in  Columbus, 
Mississippi,  one  day  earlier  than  in  Columbus,  Georgia, 
the  ladies  of  the  latter  city  may  have  been  first  in  sug- 
gesting that  Memorial  Day  be  not  a  local  celebration, 
but  one  in  which  the  whole  South  should  take  part. 

The  incident  of  the  first  decoration  of  the  graves  of 
Union  as  well  as  Confederate  soldiers  appears,  however, 
to  belong  entirely  to  Columbus,  Mississippi,  and  it  is  cer- 
tain that  this  exhibition  of  magnanimity  inspired  F.  W. 
Finch  to  write  the  famous  poem,  ''The  Blue  and  the 
Gray,"  for  when  that  poem  was  first  published  in  the 
''Atlantic  Monthly"  for  September,  1867,  it  carried  the 
following  headnote: 

The  women  of  Columbus,  Miss.,  animated  by  noble  sentiments, 
have  shown  themselves  impartial  in  their  ofiferings  to  the  mem- 
ory of  the  dead.  They  strewed  flowers  on  the  graves  of  the 
Confederate  and  of  the  National  soldiers. 

This  episode  becomes  the  more  touching  by  reason 
of  the  fact  that  the  Columbus  lady  who  initiated  the 

465 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

movement  to  place  flowers  on  the  Union  graves,  at  a 
time  when  such  action  was  sure  to  provoke  much  criti- 
cism in  the  South,  was  Mrs.  Augusta  Murdock  Sykes, 
herself  the  widow  of  a  Confederate  soldier. 

So  with  an  equal  splendor 

The  morning  sun  rays  fall, 
With  a  touch  impartially  tender 

On  the  blossoms  blooming  for  all ; 
Under  the  sod  and  the  dew, 

Waiting  the  Judgment  Day ; 
Broidered  with  gold  the  Blue ; 
Mellowed  with  gold  the  Gray. 


466 


CHAPTER  XLIII 
OUT  OF  THE  LONG  AGO 

WHILE  local  historians  attempt  to  tangle  up 
the  exploration  of  De  Soto  with  the  early 
history  of  this  region,  saying  that  De  Soto 
"entered  the  State  of  Mississippi  near  the  site  of  Colum- 
bus," and  that  "he  probably  crossed  the  Tombigbee 
River  at  this  point,"  their  conclusions  are  largely  the 
result  of  guesswork.  But  it  is  not  guesswork  to  say  that 
when  the  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  volunteers,  going  to 
the  aid  of  Andrew  Jackson,  at  New  Orleans,  in  1814,  cut 
a  military  road  from  Tuscumbia,  Alabama,  to  the  Gulf, 
they  passed  over  the  site  of  Columbus,  for  the  road  they 
cut  remains  to-day  one  of  the  principal  highways  of  the 
district  as  well  as  one  of  the  chief  streets  of  the  town. 
More  clearly  defined,  of  course,  are  memories  of  the 
Civil  War  and  of  Reconstruction,  for  there  are  many 
present-day  residents  of  Columbus  who  remember  both. 
Among  these  is  one  of  those  wonderful,  sweet,  high- 
spirited,  and  altogether  fascinating  ladies  whom  we 
call  old  only  because  their  hair  is  white  and  because  a 
number  of  years  have  passed  over  their  heads — one  of 
those  glorious  young  old  ladies  in  w^hich  the  South  is,  I 

467 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

think,  richer  than  any  other  single  section  of  the  world. 

It  was  our  good  fortune  to  meet  Mrs.  John  Billups, 
and  to  see  some  of  her  treasured  relics — among  them  the 
flag  carried  through  the  battles  of  Monterey  and  Jjuena 
Vista  by  the  First  Mississippi  Regiment,  of  which  Jef- 
ferson Davis  was  colonel,  and  in  which  her  husband  was 
a  lieutenant ;  and  a  crutch  used  by  General  Nathan  Bed- 
ford Forrest  when  he  was  housed  at  the  Billups  resi- 
dence in  Columbus,  recovering  from  a  wound.  But  bet- 
ter yet  it  was  to  hear  Mrs.  Billups  herself  tell  of  the 
times  when  the  house  in  which  she  lived  as  a  young 
woman,  at  Holly  Springs,  Mississippi,  was  used  as 
headquarters  by  General  Grant. 

Mrs.  Billups,  who  was  a  Miss  Govan,  was  educated  in 
Philadelphia  and  Wilmington,  and  had  many  friends 
and  relatives  in  the  North.  Her  mother  was  Mrs. 
Mary  Govan  of  Holly  Springs,  and  her  brother's  wife, 
who  resided  with  the  Govans  during  the  war,  w^as  a  Miss 
Hawkes,  a  daughter  of  the  Rev.  Francis  L.  Hawkes. 
then  rector  of  St.  Thomas's  Church  in  New  York.  All 
were,  however,  good  Confederates. 

Mrs.  Govan's  house  at  Holly  Springs  was  being  used 
as  a  hospital  when  Grant  and  his  army  marched,  unre- 
sisted, into  the  town,  and  Mrs.  Govan,  with  her  daugh- 
ters and  daughter-in-law,  had  already  moved  to  the  resi- 
dence of  Colonel  Harvey  Walter,  which  is  to  this  day 
a  show  place,  and  is  now  the  residence  of  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Oscar  Johnson  of  St.  Louis — Mrs.  Johnson  being  Col- 
onel Walter's  daughter. 

468 


OUT  OF  THE  LONG  AGO 

This  house  was  selected  by  Grant  as  his  headquarters, 
and  he  resided  there  for  a  considerable  period.  ("It 
seemed  a  mighty  long  time,"  says  Mrs.  Billups.)  With 
the  general  was  Mrs.  Grant  and  their  son  Jesse,  as 
well  as  Mrs.  Grant's  negro  maid,  Julia,  who,  Mrs. 
Grant  told  Mrs.  Billups,  had  been  given  to  her,  as  a 
slave,  by  her  father.  Colonel  Dent.  Mrs.  Billups  was 
under  the  impression  that  Julia  was,  at  that  time,  still  a 
slave.     At  all  events,  she  was  treated  as  a  slave. 

"We  all  liked  the  Grants,"  Mrs.  Billups  said.  "He 
had  very  little  to  say,  but  she  was  very  sociable  and  used 
to  come  in  and  sit  with  us  a  great  deal. 

"One  day  the  general  took  his  family  and  part  of  his 
army  and  went  to  Oxford,  Mississippi,  leaving  Colonel 
Murphy  in  command  at  Holly  Springs.  While  Grant 
was  away  our  Confederate  General  Van  Dorn  made  a 
raid  on  Holly  Springs,  capturing  the  town,  tearing  up 
the  railroad,  and  destroying  the  supplies  of  the  North- 
ern army.  He  just  dashed  in,  did  his  work,  and  dashed 
out  again. 

"Some  of  his  men  came  to  the  house  and,  knowing  that 
it  was  Grant's  headquarters,  wished  to  make  a  search. 
My  mother  was  entirely  willing  they  should  do  so,  but 
she  knew  that  there  were  no  papers  in  the  house,  and 
assured  the  soldiers  that  if  they  did  search  they  would 
find  nothing  but  Mrs.  Grant's  personal  apparel — which 
she  was  sure  they  would  not  wish  to  disturb. 

"That  satisfied  them  and  they  went  away. 

"Next  morning  back  came  Grant  with  his  army.     He 

469 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

rode  up  on  horseback,  preceded  hy  his  bodyguard,  and  I 
remember  that  he  looked  worn  and  worried. 

"As  he  dismounted  he  saw  my  sister-in-law,  Mrs. 
Eaton  Pugh  Go  van — the  one  who  was  Aliss  ilawkes — 
standing  on  the  gallery  above. 

"He  called  up  to  her  and  said:  'Mrs.  Govan,  I  sup- 
pose my  sword  is  gone  ?' 

"'What  sword,  General?'  she  asked  him. 

"  The  sword  that  was  presented  to  me  by  the  army. 
I  left  it  in  my  wife's  closet.' 

"Mrs.  Govan  was  thunderstruck. 

"  'I  did  n't  know  it  was  there,'  she  said.  'Oh !  I  should 
have  been  tempted  to  send  it  to  General  Van  Dorn  if  I 
had  known  that  it  was  there !' 

"The  next  morning,  as  a  reward  to  us  for  not  having 
known  that  his  sword  was  there,  the  general  gave  us  a 
protection  paper  explicitly  forbidding  soldiers  to  enter 
the  house." 

Of  course  the  Govans,  like  all  other  citizens  of  in- 
vaded districts  in  the  South,  buried  their  family  plate  be- 
fore the  "Yankees"  came. 

Shortly  after  this  had  been  accomplished — as  they 
thought,  secretly — the  Govans  were  preparing  to  enter- 
tain friends  at  dinner  w^hen  a  negro  boy  who  helped 
about  the  dining-room  remarked  innocently,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  Mrs.  Govan  and  several  of  her  servants : 

"Missus  ain't  gwnne  to  have  no  fine  table  to-night, 
caze  all  de  silvuh  's  done  buried  in  de  strawbe'y  patch." 

He  had  seen  the  old  gardener  "planting"  the  plate. 

470 


OUT  OF  THE  LONG  AGO 

Thereafter  it  was  quietly  decided  in  the  family  that 
the  negroes  had  better  know  nothing  about  the  location 
of  buried  treasure.  That  night,  therefore,  some  gentle- 
men went  out  to  the  strawberry  patch,  disinterred  the 
silver,  carried  it  to  Colonel  Walter's  place,  and  there 
buried  it  under  the  front  walk. 

"And  after  Grant  came,"  said  Mrs.  Billups,  "we  used 
to  laugh  as  we  watched  the  Union  sentries  marching  up 
and  down  that  walk,  right  over  our  plate." 

Among  the  items  not  already  mentioned,  of  which 
Columbus  is  proud,  are  the  facts  that  she  has  supplied 
two  cabinet  members  within  the  past  decade — ^J.  M. 
Dickinson,  Taf  t's  Secretary  of  War,  and  T.  W.  Gregory, 
Wilson's  Attorney  General — and  that  J.  Gano  Johnson, 
breeder  of  famous  American  saddle  horses,  has  recently 
come  from  Kentucky  and  established  his  Emerald  Chief 
Stock  Farm  in  Lowndes  County,  a  short  distance  from 
the  town. 

But  items  like  these,  let  me  be  frank  to  say,  do  not 
appeal  to  me  as  do  the  picturesque  old  stories  which 
cling  about  such  a  town. 

There  is,  for  instance,  the  story  of  Alexander  Keith 
McClung,  famous  about  the  middle  of  the  last  century  as 
a  duellist  and  dandy.  McClung  was  a  Virginian  by 
birth,  but  while  still  a  young  man  took  up  his  residence 
in  Columbus.  His  father  studied  law  under  Thomas 
Jefferson  and  was  later  conspicuous  in  Kentucky  politics, 
and  his  mother  was  a  sister  of  Chief  Justice  John  Mar- 

471 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

shall.  In  1828,  at  the  age  of  seventeen,  AlcClung  be- 
came a  midshipman  in  the  navy,  and  though  he  remained 
in  the  service  but  a  year,  he  managed  during  that  time 
to  fight  a  duel  with  another  midshipman,  who  wounded 
him  in  the  arm.  At  eighteen  he  fought  a  duel  near 
Frankfort,  Kentucky,  with  his  cousin  James  W.  Mar- 
shall. His  third  duel  was  with  a  lawyer  named  Allen, 
who  resided  in  Jackson,  Mississippi.  Allen  was  the 
challenger — as  it  is  said  McClung  took  pains  to  see  that 
his  adversaries  usually  were,  so  that  he  might  have  the 
choice  of  weapons,  for  he  w^as  very  skillful  with  the  pis- 
tol. In  his  duel  with  Allen  he  specified  that  each  was 
to  be  armed  with  four  pistols  and  a  bowie  knife,  that 
they  were  to  start  eighty  paces  apart,  and  upon  signal 
were  to  advance,  firing  at  will.  At  about  thirty  paces 
he  shot  Allen  through  the  brain.  His  fourth  duel  was 
with  John  Menifee,  of  Vicksburg,  and  w^as  fought  in 
1839,  on  the  river  bank,  near  that  city,  with  rifles  at 
thirty  yards.  Some  idea  of  the  spirit  in  which  duel- 
ling was  taken  in  those  days  may  be  gathered  from 
the  fact  that  the  \'icksburg  Rifles,  of  which  Menifee  was 
an  officer,  turned  out  in  full  uniform  to  see  the  fight. 
However  they  were  doubly  disappointed,  for  it  was  Men- 
ifee and  not  McClung  who  died.  It  is  said  that  a  short 
time  after  this,  one  of  Menifee's  brothers  challenged  Mc- 
Clung, who  killed  this  brother,  and  so  on  until  he  had 
killed  all  seven  male  members  of  the  Menifee  family. 

McClung  fought  gallantly  in  the  Mexican  War,  as 
lieutenant-colonel   of  the   First   Mississippi   Regiment, 

472 


OUT  OF  THE  LONG  AGO 

of  which  Jefferson  Davis  was  colonel.  Though  he  re- 
mained always  a  bachelor  it  is  said  that  he  had  many 
love  affairs.  He  was  a  hard  drinker,  a  flowery  speaker, 
and  a  writer  of  sentimental  verse.  It  is  said  that  in  his 
later  life  he  was  exceedingly  unhappy,  brooding  over  the 
lives  he  had  taken  in  duels — fourteen  in  all.  His  last 
poem  was  an  "Invocation  to  Death,"  ending  with  the 
line: 

"Oh,  Death,  come  soon  !     Come  soon  !" 

Shortly  after  writing  it  he  shaved,  dressed  himself 
with  the  most  scrupulous  care,  and  shot  himself.  This 
occurred  March  2t„  1855,  in  the  Eagle  Hotel,  North  Cap- 
itol Street,  Jackson,  Mississippi. 

'To  preserve  the  neatness  and  cleanliness  of  his  attire 
after  death  should  have  ensued,"  says  Colonel  R.  W. 
Banks,  "it  is  said  he  poured  a  little  water  upon  the  floor 
to  ascertain  the  direction  the  blood  would  take  when  it 
flowed  from  the  wound.  Then,  placing  himself  in 
proper  position,  so  that  the  gore  would  run  from  and  not 
toward  his  body,  he  placed  the  pistol  to  the  right  temple, 
pulled  the  trigger  and  death  quickly  followed." 


473 


CHAPTER  XTJV 
THE  GIRL  HE  LEFT  BELHND  HIM 

ON  our  second  evening  in  Columl)us  my  com- 
panion and  I  returned  to  the  house,  near  our 
domicile,  to  which  we  had  been  sent  by  Mrs. 
Eichelberger  for  our  meals;  but  owing  to  a  mis- 
understanding as  to  the  dinner  hour  we  found  our- 
selves again  tcx)  late.  The  family,  and  the  teachers 
from  the  T.  I.  and  C.  who  took  meals  there,  were  already 
coming  out  from  dinner  to  sit  and  chat  on  the  steps  in 
the  twilight. 

We  were  disappointed,  for  we  were  tired  of  restau- 
rants, and  had  counted  on  a  home  meal  that  night ;  nor 
was  our  disappointment  softened  by  the  fact  that  tl^e 
lady  whom  we  interviewed  seemed  to  have  no  \nty  for  us, 
but  dismissed  us  in  a  chilling  manner,  which  hinted  that, 
even  had  we  been  in  time  for  dinner,  we  should  have 
been  none  too  welcome  at  her  exclusive  board. 

Crestfallen,  we  turned  away  and  started  once  more 
in  the  direction  of  the  Belle  Cafe.  In  the  half  light  the 
street  held  for  us  a  melancholy  loveliness.  Above,  the 
great  trees  made  a  dark,  soft  canopy ;  the  air  was  balmy 
and  sweet  with  the  scent  of  lilacs  and  roses ;  lights  were 
beginning  to  appear  in  windows  along  the  way.     Yet 

474 


THE  GIRL  HE  LEFT  BEHIND  HIM 

none  of  it  was  for  us..  We  were  wanderers,  condemned 
forever  to  walk  through  strange  streets  whose  homes 
we  might  not  enter,  and  whose  inhabitants  we  might  not 
know. 

When  we  had  proceeded  in  silence  for  a  block  or  two, 
we  perceived  a  woman  strolling  toward  us  on  the  walk 
ahead.  Nor  was  it  yet  so  dark  that  we  could  fail  to 
notice,  as  we  neared  her,  that  she  was  very  pretty  in  her 
soft  black  dress  and  her  corsage  of  narcissus — that,  in 
short,  she  was  the  young  lady  whom,  though  we  were  in- 
debted to  her  for  our  rooms  at  Mrs.  Eichelberger's,  we 
had  not  been  able  to  thank. 

Now,  of  course,  we  stopped  and  told  her  of  our  grati- 
tude. First  my  companion  told  her  of  his.  Then  I  told 
her  of  mine.  Then  we  both  told  her  of  our  combined 
gratitude.  And  after  each  telling  she  assured  us  sweetly 
that  it  was  nothing — nothing  at  all. 

All  this  made  quite  a  little  conversation.  She  hoped 
that  we  were  comfortable.  We  assured  her  that  we 
were.  Then,  because  it  seemed  so  pleasant  to  be  talk- 
ing, on  a  balmy,  flower-scented  evening,  with  a  pretty 
girl  wearing  a  soft  black  dress  and  a  corsage  of  nar- 
cissus, we  branched  out,  telling  her  of  our  successive 
disappointments  as  to  meals  in  the  house  up  the  street. 

"Which  house?"  she  asked. 

We  described  it. 

"That 's  where  I  live,"  said  she. 

And  to  think  we  had  twice  been  late! 

''You  live  there?" 

475 


AMERICAN  ADVI^.XTURKS 

*'Yes.  It  was  my  elder  sister  whom  you  saw."  Then 
we  all  smiled,  for  we  had  spoken  of  the  chill  which  had 
accompanied  the  rebuff. 

"Do  you  think  your  sister  will  let  us  come  to-morrow 
for  breakfast?"  ventured  my  companion. 

"If  you  're  there  by  eight." 

"Because,"  he  added,  "breakfast  is  our  last  meal 
here." 

"You 're  going  away?"  , 

"Yes.     About  noon." 

"Oh,"  she  said.  And  we  hoped  the  way  she  said  it 
meant  that  she  was  just  the  least  bit  sorry  we  were 
going. 

With  that  she  started  to  move  on  again. 

"We  '11  see  you  at  breakfast,  then?" 

"Perhaps,"  she  said  in  a  casual  tone,  continuing  on  her 
way. 

"Not  surely?" 

"Why  not  come  and  see?"  The  words  were  wafted 
back  to  us  provocatively  u]^on  the  evening  air. 

'Wewill!     Goodnight." 

"Good  night." 

We  walked  some  little  way  in  silence. 

"Eight  o'clock!"  murmured  my  companion  presently 
in  a  reflective,  rueful  tone.     "We  must  turn  in  early." 

We  did  turn  in  early,  and  we  should  have  been  asleep 
early  was  it  not  for  the  fact  that  among  the  chief  won- 
ders of  Columbus  must  be  ranked  its  roosters — birds  of 
a  ghastly  habit  of  nocturnal  vocalism. 

4/6 


THE  GIRL  HE  LEFT  BEHIND  HIM 

But  though  these  creatures  interfered  somewhat  with 
our  skimbers,  and  though  eight  is  an  early  hour  for  us, 
we  reached  the  neighboring  house  next  morning  five 
minutes  ahead  of  time.  And  though  the  manner  of  the 
elder  sister  was,  as  before,  austere,  that  made  no  differ- 
ence, for  the  younger  sister  was  there. 

After  breakfast  we  dallied,  chatting  with  her  for  a 
time;  then  a  bell  began  to  toll,  and  my  companion  re- 
minded me  that  I  had  an  engagement  to  visit  the  In- 
dustrial Institute  and  College  before  leaving. 

It  was  quite  true.  I  had  made  the  engagement  the 
day  before,  but  it  had  been  my  distinct  understanding 
that  he  was  to  accompany  me;  for  if  anything  discon- 
certs me  it  is  to  go  alone  to  such  a  place.  However 
sweet  girls  may  be  as  individuals,  or  in  small  groups, 
they  are  in  the  mass  diabolically  cruel,  and  their  cruelty 
is  directed  especially  against  men.  I  know.  I  have 
walked  up  to  a  college  building  to  pay  a  call,  while  thirty 
girls,  seated  on  the  steps,  played,  sang,  and  whistled  an 
inane  marching  tune,  with  the  rhythm  of  which  my  steps 
could  not  but  keep  time.  I  have  been  the  only  man  in  a 
dining-room  full  of  college  girls.  A  hundred  of  them 
put  down  their  knives  and  forks  with  a  clatter  as  I  en- 
tered, and  a  hundred  pairs  of  mischievously  solemn  eyes 
followed  my  every  movement.  Voluntarily  to  go 
through  such  experiences  alone  a  man  must  be  in  love. 
And  certainly  I  was  not  in  love  with  any  girl  at  the  In- 
dustrial Institute. 

"We  both  have  an  engagement,"  I  said. 

477 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

"I  can't  go,"  he  returned. 

"Why  not?" 

''I  have  two  sketches  to  make  before  train  time." 

"You  're  going  to  make  me  go  over  there  alone-"' 

"1  don't  care  whether  you  go  or  not,"  he  repHed  merci- 
lessly. "You  made  the  engagement.  I  had  nothing  to 
do  with  it.     But  I  am  responsible  for  the  pictures." 

Perceiving  that  it  was  useless  to  argue  with  him,  I  re- 
luctantly departed  and,  not  without  misgivings,  made  my 
way  to  the  Industrial  Institute. 

I  am  thankful  to  say  that  there  matters  did  nut  turn 
out  so  badly  for  me  as  I  had  anticipated.  I  refused  to 
visit  classrooms,  and  contented  myself  with  gathering 
information.  And  since  the  going  to  gather  this  in- 
formation cost  me  such  uneasiness,  I  do  not  propose  to 
waste  entirely  the  fruits  of  my  effort,  but  shall  here 
record  some  of  the  facts  that  I  collected. 

The  Industrial  Institute  and  College  is  for  girls  of  six- 
teen years  or  over  who  are  graduates  of  high  schools. 
There  are  about  800  students  taking  either  the  col- 
legiate, normal,  industrial,  or  musical  courses,  or  com- 
bination courses.  This  college,  I  w^as  informed,  was  the 
first  in  the  country  to  offer  industrial  education  to 
w^omen. 

Most  of  the  students  come  from  families  in  modest 
circumstances,  and  attend  the  college  with  the  definite 
purpose  of  fitting  themselves  to  become  self-supporting. 
The  cost  is  very  slight,  the  only  regular  charge,  aside 
from  board  and  general  living  expenses,  being  a  nominal 

478 


THE  GIRL  HE  LEFT  BEHIND  HIM 

matriculation  fee  of  $5.  There  is  no  charge  for  rooms 
in  the  large  dormitories  connected  with  the  college. 
Board,  light,  fuel,  and  laundry  are  paid  for  co- 
operatively, the  average  cost  per  student,  for  all  these, 
being  about  ten  dollars  a  month — which  sum  also  in- 
cludes payment  for  a  lyceum  ticket  and  for  two  hats  per 
annum.  Uniforms  are  worn  by  all,  these  being  very 
simple  navy-blue  suits  with  sailor  hats.  Seniors  and 
juniors  wear  cap  and  gown.  All  uniform  requirements 
may  be  covered  at  a  cost  of  twenty  dollars  a  year,  and 
a  girl  who  practices  economy  may  get  through  her  col- 
lege year  at  a  total  cost  of  about  $125,  though  of  course 
some  spend  considerably  more. 

Many  students  work  their  way,  either  wholly  or  in 
part.  Thirty  or  forty  of  them  serve  in  the  dining  room, 
for  which  work  they  are  allowed  sixty-five  dollars  a 
year.  Others,  who  clean  classrooms  are  allowed  fifty 
dollars  a  year,  and  still  others  earn  various  sums  by 
assisting  in  the  library  or  reading  room  or  by  doing  sec- 
retarial work. 

Unlike  the  other  departments  of  the  college,  the 
musical  department  is  not  a  tax  upon  the  State,  but  is 
entirely  self-sustaining,  each  girl  paying  for  her  own 
lessons.  This  department  is  under  the  direction  of  Miss 
Weenonah  Poindexter,  to  whose  enthusiasm  much  if  not 
all  of  its  success  is  due.  Miss  Poindexter  began  her 
work  in  1894,  as  the  college's  only  piano  teacher,  giving 
lessons  in  the  dormitories.  Now  she  not  only  has  a 
splendid  music  hall  and  a  number  of  assistants,  but  has 

479 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

succeeded  in  making  Columbus  one  of  the  recognized 
musical  centers  of  the  South,  by  bringing  there  a  series 
of  the  most  distinguished  artists:  Paderewski,  Nor- 
dica,  Schumann-lieinck,  Gadski,  Sembrich,  Bispham, 
Albert  Spaulding,  Maud  Po.vell,  Damrosch's  Orchestra, 
and  Sousa's  Band. 

So  much  I  had  learned  of  the  I.  I.  and  C.  when  it  came 
time  for  me  to  flee  to  the  train.  My  companion  and  I 
had  already  packed  our  suitcases,  and  it  had  been  ar- 
ranged between  us  that,  instead  of  consuming  time  by 
trying  to  meet  and  drive  together  to  the  station,  we 
should  work  independently,  joining  each  other  at  the 
train. 

I  left  the  college  in  an  automobile,  stopping  at  Mrs. 
Eichelberger's  only  long  enough  to  get  my  suitcase.  As 
I  drove  on  past  the  next  corner  I  chanced  to  look  up  the 
intersecting  street.  There,  by  a  lilac  bush,  stood  my 
companion.  He  was  not  alone.  With  him  was  a  very 
pretty  girl  wearing  a  soft  black  dress  and  a  corsage  of 
narcissus.  But  the  corsage  was  now  smaller,  by  one 
flower,  than  it  had  been  before,  for,  as  I  sighted  them, 
she  was  in  the  act  of  placing  one  of  the  blooms  from  her 
bouquet  in  my  companion's  buttonhole.  Her  hands 
looked  very  white  and  small  against  his  dark  coat,  and 
I  recall  that  he  was  gazing  dow^n  at  them,  and  that  his 
features  w^ere  distorted  by  a  sentimental  smile. 

''Come  on !"  I  called  to  him. 

He  looked  up.     His  expression  was  vague. 

*'Go  along,"  he  returned. 

480 


<ki(^   , 


Her  hands  looked  very  white  and  small  against  his  dark  coat.     He  was  gazing 
down  at  them,  his  features  distorted  by  a  shockingly  sentimental  smile 


THE  GIRL  HE  LEFT  BEHIND  HIM 

''Why  don't  you  come  with  me  now?" 

'T  '11  be  there,"  he  replied.  "You  buy  the  tickets  and 
check  the  bagg-age."     And  with  that  he  turned  his  back. 

"Good-by,"  I  called  to  the  young  lady.  But  she  was 
looking  up  at  him  and  did  n't  seem  to  hear  me. 

My  companion  arrived  at  the  station  in  an  old  hack, 
with  horses  at  the  gallop.     Lie  was  barely  in  time. 

When  we  were  settled  in  the  car,  bowling  along  over 
the  prairies  toward  the  little  junction  town  of  Artesia, 
I  turned  to  him  and  inquired  how  his  work  had  gone  that 
morning.  But  at  that  moment  he  caught  sight,  through 
the  car  window,  of  some  negroes  sitting  at  a  cabin  door, 
and  exclaimed  over  their  picturesqueness. 

I  agreed.  Then,  as  the  train  left  them  behind,  I  re- 
peated my  question:     "How  did  your  work  go?" 

"This  is  very  fertile-looking  country,"  said  he. 

This  time  I  did  not  reply,  but  asked : 

"Did  you  finish  both  sketches?" 

"No,"  he  answered.    "Not  both.    There  was  n't  time." 

"Let 's  see  the  one  you  did." 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,"  he  returned,  "I  did  n't  do  any. 
You  know  how  it  is.  Sometimes  a  fellow  feels  like 
drawing — sometimes  he  does  n't.  Somehow  I  did  n't 
feel  like  it  this  morning." 

With  that  he  lifted  the  lapel  of  his  coat  and,  bending 
his  head  downward,  sniffed  in  a  romantic  manner  at  the 
sickeningly  sweet  flower  in  his  buttonhole. 


481 


CHAPTER  XLV 
VICKSBURG  OLD  AND  NEW 

I  SHOULD  advise  the  traveler  who  is  interested  in 
cities  not  to  enter  Vicksburg  by  the  Alabama  & 
Vicksburg  Railroad,  which  has  a  dingy  little  sta- 
tion in  a  sort  of  gulch,  but  hy  the  Yazoo  &  Mississippi 
Valley  Railroad — a  branch  of  the  Illinois  Central — 
which  skirts  the  river  bank  and  flashes  a  large  first  im- 
pression of  the  city  before  the  eyes  of  alighting  pas- 
sengers. 

The  station  itself  is  a  pretty  brick  colonial  building, 
backed  by  a  neat  if  tiny  park  maintained  by  the  rail- 
road company,  and  facing  the  levee  (pronounce  "Icz'- 
vy"),  along  which  the  tracks  are  laid.  Beyond  the 
tracks  untidy  landing  places  are  scattered  along  the 
water  front,  with  here  and  there  a  tall,  awkward,  stern- 
wheel  river  steamer  tied  up,  looking  rather  like  an  old- 
fashioned  New  Jersey  seacoast  hotel,  covered  with 
porches  and  jimcrack  carving,  painted  white,  embel- 
lished with  a  cupola  and  a  pair  of  tall,  thin  smokestacks, 
and  set  adrift  in  its  old  age  to  masquerade  in  maritime 
burlesque. 

At  other  points  along  the  bank  are  moored  a  heter- 
ogeneous assortment  of  shanty  boats  of  an  incredible 
and  comic   slouchiness.     Some  are  nothing  but   rafts 

482 


VICKSBURG  OLD  AND  NEW 

made  of  water-soaked  logs,  bearing  tiny  shacks  knocked 
together  out  of  driftwood  and  oki  patches  of  tin  and 
canvas,  but  the  larger  ones  have  barges,  or  the  hulks 
of  old  launches,  as  their  foundation.  These  curious 
craft  are  moored  in  long  lines  to  the  half-submerged 
willow  and  cottonwood  trees  along  the  bank,  or  to  stakes 
driven  into  the  levee,  or  to  the  railroad  ties,  or  to  what- 
ever objects,  ashore,  may  be  made  fast  an  old  frayed 
rope  or  a  piece  of  telephone  wire.  Long,  narrow  planks, 
precariously  propped,  connect  them  with  the  river  bank, 
so  that  the  men,  women,  children,  dogs,  and  barnyard 
creatures  who  inhabit  them  may  pass  to  and  fro.  Some 
of  the  boats  are  the  homes  of  negro  families,  some  of 
whites.  On  some,  negro  fish  markets  are  conducted,  ad- 
vertised by  large  catfish  dangling  from  their  posts  and 
railings. 

Whether  fishing  for  market,  for  personal  use,  or 
merely  for  the  sake  of  having  an  occupation  involving 
a  minimum  of  efifort,  the  residents  of  shanty  boats — 
particularly  the  negroes — seem  to  spend  most  of  their 
days  seated  in  drowsy  attitudes,  with  fish  poles  in  their 
hands.  Their  eyes  fall  shut,  their  heads  nod  in  the  sun, 
their  lines  lag  in  the  muddy  water;  life  is  uneventful, 
pleasant,  and  warm. 

When  Porter's  mortar  fleet  lay  in  the  river,  off  Vicks- 
burg,  bombarding  the  town,  that  river  was  the  Missis- 
sippi, but  though  it  looks  the  same  to-day  as  it  did  then, 
it  is  not  the  Mississippi  now,  but  the  Yazoo  River. 
This  comes  about  through  one  of  those  freakish  changes 

483 


AM i<:ricAx\  AD\M':\'ri;Ri:s 

of  course  for  which  the  great  strecini  lias  always  been 
famous. 

In  the  old  days  Vicksburg  was  situated  upon  one  of 
the  loops  of  a  large  letter  "S"  formed  by  the  Mississippi, 
but  in  1876  the  river  cut  through  a  section  of  land  and 
eliminated  the  loop  upon  which  the  town  stood.  Fortu- 
nately, however,  the  Yazoo  emptied  into  the  Mississippi 
above  Vicksburg,  and  it  was  found  possible,  by  digging 
a  canal,  to  divert  the  latter  river  from  its  course  and 
lead  its  waters  into  the  loop  left  dry  by  the  whim  of 
the  greater  stream.  Thus  the  river  life,  out  of  which 
X'icksburg  was  born,  and  without  which  the  place  would 
lose  its  character,  was  retained,  and  the  wicked  old  Mis- 
sissippi, which  has  played  rough  pranks  on  men  and 
cities  since  men  and  cities  first  appeared  upon  its  banks, 
was  for  once  circumvented.  This  is  but  one  item  from 
the  record  of  grotesque  tricks  wrought  by  changes  in 
the  river's  course:  a  record  of  farms  located  at  night 
on  one  side  of  the  stream,  and  in  the  morning  on  the 
other;  of  large  tracts  of  land  transferred  from  State 
to  State  by  a  sudden  switch  of  this  treacherous  fluid  line 
of  boundary;  of  river  boats  crashing  by  night  into  dry 
land  where  yesterday  a  deep  stream  flowed;  of  towns 
built  up  on  river  trade,  utterly  dependent  upon  the  river, 
yet  finding  themselves  suddenly  deserted  by  it.  like  wives 
whose  husbands  disappear,  leaving  them  withering,  help- 
less, and  in  want. 

Where  the  upper  Mississippi,  above  St.  T.ouis,  flows 
between  tall  bluffs  it  attains  a  grandeur  which  one  ex- 

484 


/    o 


3 

■ji  3 

b  ■»-> 

w>  O 

I-,   o 

«  % 
5:a 


J3 


-3 


VICKSBURG  OLD  AND  NEW 
pects  in  mighty  streams,  but  that  is  not  the  part  of  the 
river  which  gets  itself  talked  about  in  the  newspapers 
and  in  Congress,  nor  is  it  the  part  of  the  river  one  in- 
voluntarily thinks  of  when  the  name  Mississippi  is  men- 
tioned. The  drama,  the  wonder,  the  mystery  of  the 
Mississippi  are  in  the  lower  river:  the  river  of  count- 
less wooded  islands,  now  standing  high  and  dry,  now 
buried  to  the  tree  tops  in  swirling  torrents  of  muddy 
water*;  the  river  of  black  gnarled  snags  carried  down- 
stream to  the  Gulf  with  the  speed  of  motor  boats;  the 
river  whose  craft  sail  on  a  level  with  the  roofs  of 
houses;  the  river  of  broken  levees,  of  savage  inunda- 
tions. 

The  upper  river  has  a  beauty  which  is  like  that  of  some 
lovely,  stately,  placid,  well-behaved  blond  wife.  She  is 
conventional  and  correct.  You  always  know  where  to 
find  her.  The  lower  river  is  a  temperamental  mistress. 
At  one  moment  she  is  all  sweetness,  smiles  and  playful- 
ness ;  at  the  next  vivid  and  passionate.  Even  when  she 
is  at  her  loveliest  there  is  always  the  possibility  of  sud- 
den fury:  of  her  rising  in  a  rage,  breaking  the  furni- 
ture, wrecking  the  house— yes,  and  perhaps  winding  her 
wicked  cold  arms  about  you  in  a  final  destroying  em- 
brace. 

Being  the  ''Gibraltar  of  the  river"  (albeit  a  Gibraltar 
of  clay  and  not  of  rock),  Vicksburg  does  not  suffer 
when  floods  come.  Turn  your  back  upon  the  river,  as 
you  stand  on  the  platform  of  the  Yazoo  &  Mississippi 
railroad  station,  and  you  may  gather  at  a  glance  an  im- 

485 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

pression  of  the  town  piling  up  the  hillside  to  the  east- 
ward. 

The  first  buildings,  occupying  the  narrow  shelf  of 
land  at  the  water's  edge,  are  small  warehouses,  negro 
eating  houses,  dilapidated  little  steamship  offices,  and 
all  manner  of  shacks  in  want  of  paint  and  repairs. 
From  the  station  Mulberry  Street  runs  obliquely  up  the 
hillside  to  the  south.  This  street,  which  forms  the  main 
thoroughfare  to  the  station,  used  to  be  occupied  l)y 
wholesale  houses,  but  has  more  lately  been  given  over 
largely  to  a  frankly  and  prominently  exposed  district  of 
commercialized  vice — negro  and  white.  Not  only  is  it 
at  the  very  door  of  Vicksburg,  but  it  parallels,  and  is 
but  one  block  distant  from,  the  city's  main  street. 

Other  streets,  so  steep  as  hardly  to  be  passable,  di- 
rectly assault  the  face  of  the  hill,  mounting  abruptly  to 
AX'ashington  Street,  which  runs  on  a  flat  terrace  at  about 
the  height  of  the  top  of  the  station  roof,  and  exposes 
to  the  view  of  the  newly  arrived  traveler  the  unpainted 
wooden  backs  of  a  number  of  frame  buildings  which, 
though  they  are  but  two  or  three  stories  high  in  front, 
reach  in  some  cases  a  height  of  five  or  six  stories  at 
the  rear,  owing  to  the  steepness  of  the  hillside  to  which 
they  cling.  The  roof  lines,  side  walls,  windows,  chim- 
neys, galleries,  posts,  and  railings  of  these  sad-looking 
structures  are  all  picturesquely  out  of  plumb,  and  some 
idea  of  the  general  dilapidation  may  be  gathered  from 
the  fact  that,  one  day,  while  my  companion  stood  on 
the  station  platform,  drawing  a  picture  of  this  scene,  a 

486 


VICKSBURG  OLD  AND  NEW 

brick  chimney,  a  portrait  of  which  he  had  just  completed, 
softly  collapsed  before  our  eyes,  for  all  the  world  like 
a  sitter  who,  having  held  a  pose  too  long,  faints  from 
exhaustion. 

A  brief  inspection  of  the  life  on  the  galleries  of  these 
foul  old  fire  traps  reveals  them  as  negro  tenements ;  and, 
though  they  front  on  the  main  street  of  Vicksburg,  it 
should  be  explained  that  about  here  begins  the  ''nio-- 
ger  end"  of  Washington  Street— the  more  prosperous 
portion  of  the  downtown  section  lying  to  the  south- 
ward, where  substantial  brick  office  buildings  may  be 
seen. 

Between  the  ragged,  bulging  tenements  above  are  oc- 
casional narrow  gaps  through  which  are  revealed  cine- 
matographic glimpses  of  street  traffic;  and  over  the  tene- 
ment roofs  one  catches  sight  of  sundry  other  buildings, 
these  being  of  brick,  and,  though  old,  and  in  no  way 
imposing,  yet  of  a  more  prosperous  and  self-respecting 
character  than  the  nearer  structures. 

Altogether,  the  scene,  though  it  is  one  to  delight  an 
etcher,  is  not  of  a  character  to  inspire  hope  in  the  heart 
of  a  humanitarian,  or  an  expert  on  sanitation  or  fire 
prevention.  Nor,  indeed,  would  it  achieve  complete- 
ness, even  on  the  artistic  side,  were  it  not  for  its  crown- 
ing feature.  Far  off,  over  the  roofs  and  above  them, 
making  an  apex  to  the  composition,  and  giving  to  the 
whole  picture  a  background  of  beauty  and  of  ancient 
dignity,  rises  the  graceful  white-columned  cupola  of 
Vicksburg's  old  stone  courthouse,  partially  obscured  by 

487 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

a  feathery  green  tree  top,  hinting  of  space  and  foliage 
upon  the  summit  of  the  hill. 

Pamphlets  on  Vicksburg,  issued  by  railroad  companies 
for  the  enticement  of  tourists,  give  most  of  their  space 
to  the  story  of  the  campaign  leading  to  Grant's  siege  of 
Vicksburg  and  to  descriptions  of  the  various  operations 
in  the  siege — the  battlefield,  now  a  national  military 
park,  being  considered  the  city's  chief  object  of  interest. 

Though  I  am  not  constitutionally  enthusiastic  about 
seeing  battlefields,  I  must  admit  that  I  found  the  field 
of  Vicksburg  engrossing.  The  siege  of  a  small  city  pre- 
sents a  comparatively  simple  and  compact  military  prob- 
lem which  is,  therefore,  comprehensible  to  the  civilian 
mind,  and  in  addition  to  this  the  X'icksburg  battlefield  is 
splendidly  preserved  and  marked,  so  that  the  visitor  may 
easily  reconstruct  the  conflict. 

The  park,  which  covers  the  fighting  area,  forms  a 
loose  crescent-shaped  strip  over  the  hills  which  surround 
the  city,  its  points  abutting  on  the  river  above  and  below. 
The  chief  drives  of  the  park  parallel  each  other,  the 
inner  one,  Confederate  Avenue,  following,  as  nearly  as 
the  hills  permit,  the  city's  line  of  defense,  while  the 
other,  Union  Avenue,  forms  an  outer  semicircle  and  fol- 
lows, in  a  similar  manner,  the  trenches  of  the  attacking 
forces. 

That  the  battlefield  is  so  well  preserved  is  due  in  part 
to  man  and  in  part  to  Nature.  Many  of  the  hills  of 
Warren  County,  in  which  Vicksburg  is  situated,  are 

488 


VICKSBURG  OLD  AND  NEW 

composed  of  a  curious  soft  limy  clay,  called  marl,  which, 
normally,  has  not  the  solidity  of  soft  chalk.  Marse 
Harris  Dickson,  who  knows  more  about  Vicksburg — 
and  also  about  negroes,  common  law,  floods,  funny 
stories,  geology,  and  rivers — than  any  other  man  in  Mis- 
sissippi, tells  me  that  this  marl  was  deposited  by  the 
river,  in  the  form  of  silt,  centuries  ago,  and  that  it  was 
later  thrown  up  into  hills  by  volcanic  action.  He  did 
not  live  in  Vicksburg  when  this  took  place,  but  deduces 
his  facts  from  the  discovery  of  the  remains  of  shellfish 
in  the  soil  of  the  hills. 

Whatever  its  geological  origin,  this  soil  has  some  very 
strange  characteristics.  In  composition  it  is  neither 
stone  nor  sand,  but  a  cross  between  the  two — ^brown  and 
brittle.  One  can  easily  crush  it  to  dust  in  one's  hand, 
in  which  form  it  has  about  the  consistency  of  talcum 
powder,  and  it  may  be  added  that  when  this  brown  pow- 
der is  seized  by  the  winds  and  whirled  about,  Vicksburg 
becomes  one  of  the  most  mercilessly  dusty  cities  on  this 
earth. 

On  exposed  slopes  the  marl  washes  very  badly,  form- 
ing great  caving  gullies,  but,  curiously  enough,  where  it 
is  exposed  perpendicularly  it  does  not  wash,  but  slicks 
over  on  the  outside,  and  stands  almost  as  well  as  soft 
sandstone,  although  you  can  readily  dig  into  it  with  your 
fingers. 

Many  of  the  highways  leading  in  and  out  of  the  city 
pass  between  tall  walls  of  this  peculiar  soil,  through 
deep  cuts  which  a  visitor  might  naturally  take  for  the 

489 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

result  of  careful  grading  by  the  road  builders;  but 
Marse  Harris  Dickson  tells  me  that  the  cuts  are  entirely 
the  result  of  erosion  wrought  by  a  hundred  years  of 
wheeled  traffic. 

So  far  as  I  know  there  is  but  one  man  who  has  wit- 
nessed this  phenomenon  without  being  impressed. 
That  man  is  Samuel  Merwin.  IMerwin  went  down  and 
visited  Marse  Harris  in  Vicksburg,  and  saw  all  the 
sights.  He  was  polite  about  the  battlefield,  and  the 
river,  and  the  negro  stories,  and  everything  else,  until 
Marse  Harris  showed  him  how  the  highways  had  eroded 
through  the  hills.  That  did  not  seem  to  impress  him 
at  all.  Moreover,  instead  of  being  tactful,  he  started 
telling  about  his  trip  to  China.  In  China,  he  said,  there 
were  similar  formations,  but,  as  the  civilization  of  China 
was  much  older  than  that  of  Vicksburg  (fancy  his  hav- 
ing said  a  thing  like  that!)  the  gorges  over  there  had 
eroded  to  a  much  greater  extent.  He  said  he  had  seen 
them  three  hundred  feet  deep. 

The  more  Marse  Harris  tried  to  get  him  to  say  some- 
thing a  little  bit  complimentary  about  the  Vicksburg  ero- 
sions, the  more  Merwin  boasted  about  China.  He  de- 
clared that  the  Vicksburg  erosions  did  n't  amount  to  a 
hill  of  beans  compared  with  what  he  could  show  Marse 
Harris  if  Marse  Harris  would  go  with  him  to  a  certain 
point  on  the  banks  of  the  W'a  Choo,  in  the  province  of 
Lang  Pang  Si. 

Evidently  he  harped  on  this  until  he  touched  not  only 
his  host's  local  pride,  but  his  pride  of  discovery.     Be- 

490 


VICKSBURG  OLD  AND  NEW 

fore  that,  JMarse  Harris  had  been  content  to  stick  around 
in  Mississippi,  with  perhaps  a  Httle  run  down  to  New 
Orleans  for  Mardi  Gras,  or  up  to  Dogtail  to  see  a  break 
in  the  levee,  but  after  Merwin's  talk  about  China  he 
began  to  grow  restless,  and  it  is  generally  said  in  Vicks- 
burg  that  it  was  purely  in  order  to  have  something  to 
tell  Merwin  about,  the  next  time  he  saw  him,  that  he 
made  his  celebrated  trip  to  the  source  of  the  Nile.  As 
for  Merwin,  he  has  never  been  invited  back  to  Vicks- 
burg,  and  it  is  to  be  observed  that,  even  to  this  day, 
Marse  Harris,  by  nature  of  a  sunny  disposition,  shows 
signs  of  erosion  of  the  spirit  when  China  is  mentioned. 
It  is  apropos  the  battlefield  that  I  mention  the  pecul- 
iarities of  the  soil.  Had  the  bare  ground  been  exposed 
to  the  rains  of  a  few  years,  the  details  of  redoubts, 
trenches,  gim  positions,  saps,  and  all  other  military 
works  would  have  melted  away.  Fortunately,  how- 
ever, there  is  a  kind  of  tough,  strong-rooted  grass,  called 
Bermuda  grass,  indigenous  to  that  part  of  the  country, 
and  this  grass  quickly  covered  the  battlefield,  holding 
the  soil  together  so  effectually  that  all  outlines  are  prac- 
tically embalmed.  So,  although  those  in  charge  of  the 
park  have  contributed  not  a  little  to  its  preservation — 
putting  old  guns  in  their  former  places,  perpetuating 
saps  with  concrete  work,  and  placing  white  markers  on 
the  hillsides,  to  show  how  far  up  those  hillsides  the  as- 
saulting Union  troops  made  their  way  in  various  historic 
charges — it  is  due  most  of  all  to  Nature  that  the  Vicks- 
burg  battlefield  so  well  explains  itself. 

491 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Could  Grant  and  Pemberton  look  to-day  upon  the  hills 
and  valleys  where  surged  their  six  weeks'  struggle  for 
possession  of  the  city,  I  doubt  that  they  would  find  any 
important  landmark  wanting,  and  it  is  certain  that  they 
could  not  say,  as  Wellington  did  when  he  revisited 
Waterloo:     "They  have  spoiled  my  battlefield!" 

Besides  the  old  guns  and  the  markers,  the  field  is 
dotted  over  with  observation  towers  and  all  manner  of 
memorials.  Of  the  latter,  the  marble  pantheon  erected 
by  the  State  of  Illinois,  and  the  beautiful  marble  and 
bronze  memorial  structure  of  the  State  of  Iowa,  are 
probably  the  finest.  The  marble  column  erected  by  Wis- 
consin carries  at  its  summit  a  great  bronze  efiigy  of 
*'01d  Abe,"  the  famous  eagle,  mascot  of  the  Wisconsin 
troops.  Guides  to  the  battlefield  are  prone  to  relate 
to  visitors — especially,  I  suspect,  those  whose  accents 
betray  a  Northern  origin — how  "Old  Abe,"  the  bird  of 
battle,  went  home  and  disgraced  himself,  after  the  war, 
by  his  ungentlemanly  action  in  laying  a  setting  of  eggs. 

The  handsomest  monument  to  an  individual  which  I 
saw  upon  the  battlefield  was  the  admirable  bronze  bust 
of  ^lajor  General  Martin  L.  Smith,  C.  S.  A.,  and  the 
one  which  appealed  most  to  my  imagination  was  also 
a  memorial  to  a  Confederate  soldier:  Brigadier- 
General  States  Rights  Gist.  Is  there  not  something  Ro- 
man in  the  thought  that,  thirty  or  more  years  be- 
fore the  war,  a  southern  father  gave  his  new-born  son 
that  name,  dedicating  him,  as  it  were,  to  the  cause  of 
States  Rights,  and  that  the  son  so  dedicated  gave  his 

492 


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VICKSBURG  OLD  AND  NEW 

life  in  battle  for  that  cause  ?  The  name  upon  that  stone 
made  me  better  understand  the  depth  of  feeling  that 
existed  in  the  South  long  years  before  the  War,  and 
gave  me  a  clearer  comprehension  of  at  least  one  reason 
why  the  South  made  such  a  gallant  fight. 

Of  more  than  fourscore  national  cemeteries  in  the 
United  States,  that  which  stands  among  the  hills  and 
trees,  overlooking  the  river,  at  the  northerly  end  of  the 
military  park,  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful,  and  is,  with 
the  single  exception  of  Arlington,  the  largest.  It  con- 
tains the  graves  of  nearly  17,000  Union  soldiers  lost  in 
this  campaign — three-fourths  of  them  "unknown"  ! 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that,  because  the  surrender 
of  Pemberton  to  Grant  occurred  on  July  4,  that  date 
has,  in  this  region,  associations  less  happy  than  attach 
to  it  elsewhere,  and  that  the  Fourth  has  not  been  cele- 
brated in  Vicksburg  since  the  Civil  War,  except  by  the 
negroes,  who  have  taken  it  for  their  especial  holiday. 
This  reminds  me,  also,  of  the  fact  that,  throughout  the 
South,  Christmas,  instead  of  the  Fourth  of  July,  is  cele- 
brated with  fireworks. 


493 


CHAPTER  XLVI 
SHREDS  AND  PATCHES 

IT  was  Alarse  Plarris  Dickson  who  showed  us  the 
battlefield.  As  we  were  driving  along  in  the  motor 
we  overtook  an  old  trudging  negro,  very  pictur- 
esque in  his  ragged  clothing  and  battered  soft  hat.  My 
companion  said  that  he  would  like  to  take  a  picture  of 
this  wayfarer,  and  asked  Marse  Harris,  who,  as  author 
of  the  "Old  Reliable"  stories,  seemed  best  fitted  for  the 
task,  to  arrange  the  matter.  The  automobile,  having 
passed  the  negro,  was  stopped  to  wait  for  him  to  catch 
up.  Presently,  as  he  came  by,  Marse  Harris  addressed 
him  in  that  friendly  way  Southerners  have  with  negroes. 

''Want  your  picture  taken,  old  man?"  he  asked. 

To  which  the  negro,  still  shuffling  along,  replied : 

'T  ain't  got  no  money." 

Marse  Harris,  knowing  the  workings  of  the  negro 
mind,  got  the  full  import  of  this  reply  at  once,  but  I 
must  confess  that  a  moment  passed  before  I  realized 
that  the  negro  took  us  for  itinerant  photographers  look- 
ing for  trade. 

With  the  possible  exception  of  Irvin  S.  Cobb,  I  sup- 
pose INTarse  Harris  has  the  largest  collection  of  negro 
character   stories   of   any   individual   in   this   country. 

494 


SHREDS  AND  PATCHES 

And  let  me  say,  in  this  connection,  that  I  know  of  no 
better  place  than  Vicksburg  for  the  study  of  southern 
negro  types. 

One  day  Marse  Harris  was  passing  by  the  jail.  It 
was  hot  weather,  and  the  jail  windows  were  open.  Be- 
hind the  bars  of  one  window,  looking  down  upon  the 
street,  stood  a  negro  prisoner.  As  Marse  Harris  passed 
this  window  a  negro  wearing  a  large  watch  chain  came 
by  in  the  other  direction.  His  watch  chain  evidently 
caught  the  eye  of  the  prisoner,  who  spoke  in  a  wistful 
tone,  demanding: 

"What  tahme  is  it,  brotha?" 

''What  foh  you  want  t'  know  what  tahme  it  is?"  re- 
turned the  other  sternly,  as  he  continued  upon  his  way. 
''You  ain't  goin'  nowhere." 

Through  Marse  Harris  I  obtained  a  copy  of  a  let- 
ter written  by  a  negro  named  Walter  to  Mr.  W.  H. 
Reeve  of  Vicksburg.  Walter  had  looked  out  for  Mr. 
Reeve's  live  stock  during  a  flood,  and  had  certain  ideas 
about  what  should  be  done  for  him  in  consequence.  I 
give  the  letter  exactly  as  it  was  written,  merely  insert- 
ing, parenthetically,  a  few  explanatory  words : 

Mr.  H  W  Reeve  an  bos  dear  sir  I  like  to  git  me  a  par  [pair] 
second  hand  pance  dont  a  fail  or  eke  I  mill  be  doiit  [without]  a 
pare  to  go  eny  zvhere  so  sejid  me  something.  Dont  a  fail  an  send 
me  a  par  of  yoiire  pance  [or]  i  tvill  hafter  go  to  zvork  for  some- 
body to  git  some.  I  don't  think  you  all  is  treating  me  right  at  all 
I  stayed  with  yoiire  hogs  in  the  zuater  till  the  last  tening  [attend- 
ing] to  them  and  I  dont  think  that  youre  oder  [ought  to]  fail  me 
bout  a  pare  old  pance  Walter 

495 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Though  1  cannot  see  just  why  it  should  be  so,  it 
seemed  to  us  that  the  Vicksburg  negroes  were  happier 
than  those  of  any  other  place  we  visited.  Whether 
drowsing  in  the  sun,  walking  the  streets,  doing  a  little 
stroke  of  work,  fishing,  or  sitting  gabbling  on  the  curb- 
stone, they  were  upon  the  whole  as  cheerful  and  as  com- 
ical a  lot  of  people  as  I  ever  saw. 

"Wha'  you-all  goin'  to?"  I  heard  a  negro  ask  a  group 
of  mulatto  women,  in  clean  starched  gingham  dresses, 
who  went  flouncing  by  him  on  the  street  one  Saturday 
afternoon. 

''Oh,"  returned  one  of  the  women,  w^ith  the  elaborate 
superiority  of  a  member  of  the  class  of  idle  rich,  "we  're 
just  serenadin'  'round." 

"Serenading,"  as  she  used  the  word,  meant  a  prome- 
nade about  the  town.  . 

Perhaps  the  happiness  of  the  negro,  here,  has  to  do 
with  the  lazy  life  of  the  river.  The  succulent  catfish  is 
easily  obtainable  for  food,  and  the  wages  of  the  rousta- 
bout— or  "rouster,"  as  he  is  called  for  short — are  good. 

The  rouster,  in  his  red  undershirt,  with  a  bale  hook 
hung  in  his  belt,  is  a  figure  to  fascinate  the  eye.  When 
he  works — which  is  to  say,  when  he  is  out  of  funds — 
he  works  hard.  He  will  swnng  a  two-hundred-pound 
sack  to  his  back  and  do  fancy  steps  as  he  marches  with 
it  up  the  springy  gangplank  to  the  river  steamer's  deck, 
uttering  now  and  then  a  strange,  barbaric  snatch  of 
song.  He  has  no  home,  no  family,  no  responsibilities. 
An  ignorant  deck  hand  can  earn  from  forty  to  one  hun- 

496 


SHREDS  AND  PATCHES 

dred  dollars  a  month.  Pay  him  off  at  the  end  of  the 
trip,  let  him  get  ashore  with  his  money,  and  he  is  gone. 
Without  deck  hands  the  steamer  cannot  move.  For 
many  years  there  has  been  known  to  river  captains  a 
simple  way  out  of  this  difficulty.  Pay  the  rousters  off 
a  few  hours  before  the  end  of  the  trip.  Say  there  are 
twenty  of  them,  and  that  each  is  given  twenty  dollars. 
They  clear  a  space  on  deck  and  begin  shooting  craps. 
No  one  interferes.  By  the  time  the  trip  ends  most  of 
the  money  has  passed  into  the  hands  of  four  or  five ;  the 
rest  are  ''broke"  and  therefore  remain  at  work. 
Yet  despite  the  ingenuity  of  those  who  have  the  negro 
labor  problem  to  contend  with,  Marse  Harris  tells  me 
that  there  have  been  times  when  the  levee  was  lined 
with  steamers,  full-loaded,  but  unable  to  depart  for  want 
of  a  crew.  Not  that  there  was  any  lack  of  roustabouts 
in  town,  but  that,  money  being  plentiful,  they  would  not 
work.  In  such  times  perishable  freight  rots  and  is 
thrown  overboard. 

I  am  conscious  of  a  tendency,  in  writing  of  Vicks- 
burg,  to  dwell  continually  upon  the  negro  and  the  river 
for  the  reason  that  the  two  form  an  enchanting  back- 
ground for  the  whole  life  of  the  place.  This  should  not, 
however,  be  taken  to  indicate  that  Vicksburg  is  not  a 
city  of  agreeable  homes  and  pleasant  society,  or  that  its 
only  picturesqueness  is  to  be  found  in  the  river  and 
negro  life. 

The  point  is  that  Vicksburg  is  a  patchwork  city. 
The  National  Park  Hotel,  its  chief  hostelry,  is  an  un- 

497 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

usually  good  hotel  for  a  city  of  this  size,  and  Washing- 
ton Street,  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  hotel,  has  the  look 
of  a  busy  city  street;  yet  on  the  same  square  with  the 
hotel,  on  the  street  below,  nearer  the  river,  is  an  un- 
wholesome negro  settlement.  So  it  is  all  over  the  city; 
the  "white  folks''  live  on  the  hills,  while  the  "niggers" 
inhabit  the  adjacent  bottoms.  Nor  is  that  the  only 
sense  in  which  the  town  is  patched  together.  Some  of 
the  most  charming  of  the  city's  old  homes  are  tucked 
away  where  the  visitor  is  not  likely  to  see  them  without 
deliberate  search.  Such  a  place,  for  example,  is  the  old 
Klein  house,  standing  amid  lawns  and  old-fashioned 
gardens,  on  the  blufif  overlooking  the  Mississippi.  This 
house  was  built  long  before  the  railroad  came  to  Vicks- 
burg,  cutting  oft"  its  grounds  from  the  river.  A  patch 
in  the  paneling  of  the  front  door  shows  w^here  a  cannon 
ball  passed  through  at  the  time  of  the  bombardment, 
and  the  ball  itself  may  still  be  seen  embedded  in  the 
woodwork  of  one  of  the  rooms  within. 

And  there  are  other  patches.  Near  the  old  court- 
house, which  rears  itself  so  handsomely  at  the  summit 
of  a  series  of  terraces  leading  up  from  the  street,  are  a 
number  of  old  sand  roads  which  must  be  to-day  almost 
as  they  were  in  the  heyday  of  the  river's  glory,  when 
the  region  in  which  the  courthouse  stands  was  the  prin- 
cipal part  of  the  city — the  days  of  heavy  drinking  and 
gambling,  dueling,  slave  markets,  and  steamboat  races. 
These  streets  are  not  the  streets  of  a  city,  but  of  a  small 
town.     So,  too,  where  Adams  Street  crosses  Grove,  it 

498 


SHREDS  AND  PATCHES 

has  the  appearance  of  a  country  lane,  the  road  repre- 
sented by  a  pair  of  wheel  tracks  running  through  the 
grass ;  but  Cherry  Street,  only  a  block  distant,  is  built  up 
with  city  houses  and  has  a  good  asphalt  pavement  and 
a  trolley  line. 


499 


CHAPTER  XLVIT 
THE  BAFFLING  MISSISSIPPI 

AS  inevitably  as  water  flows  down  the  hills  of 
Vicksburg  to  the  river,  the  visitor's  thoughts 
flow  clown  always  to  the  great  spectacular,  his- 
toric, mischievous,  dominating  stream. 

Mark  Twain,  in  that  glorious  book,  "Life  on  the 
Mississippi,"  declared,  in  speaking  of  the  eternal  prob- 
lems of  the  Mississippi,  that  as  there  are  not  enough 
citizens  of  Louisiana  to  take  care  of  all  the  theories 
about  the  river  at  the  rate  of  one  theory  per  individual, 
each  citizen  has  two  theories.  That  is  the  case  to-day 
as  it  was  when  Mark  Twain  was  a  pilot.  I  have  heard 
half  a  dozen  prominent  men,  some  of  them  engineers, 
state  their  views  as  to  what  should  be  done.  Each  view 
seemed  sound,  yet  all  were  at  variance. 

Consider,  for  example,  that  part  of  the  river  lying  be- 
tween Vicksburg  and  the  mouth.  Here,  quite  aside 
from  the  problem  as  to  the  hands  in  which  river-control 
work  should  be  vested — a  very  great  problem  in  itself — 
three  separate  and  distinct  physical  problems  are  pre- 
sented. 

From  Vicksburg  to  Red  River  Landing  there  are 
swift  currents  which  deposit  silt  only  at  the  edge  of  the 

500 


THE  BAFFLING  MISSISSIPPI 

bank,  or  on  sand  bars.  From  Red  River  Landing  to 
New  Orleans  the  problem  is  different;  here  the  channel 
is  much  improved,  and  slow  currents  at  the  sides  of  the 
river,  between  the  natural  river  bank  and  the  levee,  de- 
posit silt  in  the  old  "borrow  pits" — pits  from  which  the 
earth  was  dug  for  the  building  of  the  levees — filling 
them  up,  whereas,  farther  up  the  river,  the  borrow  pits, 
instead  of  filling  up,  are  likely  to  scour,  undermining 
the  levee.  From  New  Orleans  to  the  head  of  the  Passes 
— these  being  the  three  main  channels  by  which  the  river 
empties  into  the  Gulf — the  banks  between  the  natural 
river  bed  and  the  levees  build  up  with  silt  much  more 
rapidly  than  at  any  other  point  on  the  entire  stream; 
here  there  are  no  sand  bars,  and  the  banks  cave  very 
little.  In  this  part  of  the  river  it  is  not  current,  but 
wind,  which  forms  the  great  problem,  for  the  winds  are 
terrific  at  certain  times  of  year,  and  when  they  blow 
violently  against  the  current,  waves  are  formed  which 
wash  out  the  levees. 

This  is  the  barest  outline  of  three  chief  physical  prob- 
lems with  which  river  engineers  must  contend.  There 
are  countless  others  which  have  to  be  met  in  various 
ways.  In  some  places  the  water  seeps  through,  under 
the  levee,  and  bubbles  up,  like  a  spring,  from  the  ground 
outside.  This,  if  allowed  to  continue,  soon  undermines 
the  levee  and  causes  a  break.  The  method  of  fighting 
such  a  seepage  is  interesting.  When  the  water  begins 
to  bubble  up,  a  hollow  tower  of  sand-filled  sacks  is  built 
up  about  the  place  where  it  comes  from  the  ground,  and 

501 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

when  this  tower  has  raised  the  level  of  the  water  within 
it  to  that  of  the  river,  the  pressure  is  of  course  removed, 
on  the  siphon  principle. 

As  river-control  work  is  at  present  handled,  there  is 
no  centralization  of  authority,  and  friction,  waste,  and 
politics  consequently  play  a  large  part. 

Consider,  for  example,  the  situation  in  the  State  of 
Louisiana.  Here  control  is,  broadly  speaking,  in  the 
hands  of  three  separate  bodies :  ( i )  the  United  States 
army  engineer,  who  disburses  the  money  appropriated 
by  Congress  for  levees  and  bank  revetment,  work- 
ing under  direction  of  the  Mississippi  River  Commis- 
sion; (2)  the  State  Board  of  Engineers,  which  disburses 
Louisiana  State  funds  wherever  it  sees  fit,  and  which, 
incidentally,  does  not  use,  in  its  work,  the  same  specifi- 
cations as  are  used  by  the  Government ;  and  ( 3 )  the 
local  levee  boards,  of  which  there  are  eight  in  Louisiana, 
one  to  each  river  parish — a  parish  being  what  is  else- 
where called  a  county.  Each  of  these  eight  boards 
has  authority  as  to  where  parish  money  shall  be  spent 
within  its  district,  and  it  may  be  added  that  this  last 
group  (considering  the  eight  boards  as  a  unit)  has  the 
largest  sum  to  spend  on  river  work. 

The  result  of  this  division  of  authority  creates  chaos, 
and  has  built  up  a  situation  infinitely  worse  than  was 
faced  by  General  Goethals  when  Congress  attempted  to 
divide  control  in  the  building  of  the  Panama  Canal.  It 
will  be  remembered  that,  in  that  case,  a  commission  was 
appointed,  but  that  Roosevelt  circumvented  Congress  by 

502 


THE  BAFFLING  MISSISSIPPI 

making  General  Goethals  head  of  the  commission  with 
full  powers. 

While  the  canal  was  in  course  of  construction,  Gen- 
eral Goethals  appeared  before  the  Senate  Committee  on 
Commerce.  When  asked  what  he  knew  of  levee  build- 
ing and  work  on  the  Mississippi,  he  replied : 

'T  don't  know  a  single,  solitary  thing  about  the  work 
on  the  Mississippi  except  that  it  is  being  carried  on  un- 
der the  annual  appropriation  system.  If  we  had  that 
system  to  hamper  us,  the  Panama  Canal  would  not  be 
completed  on  time  and  within  the  estimate,  as  it  will 
be.  That  system  leaves  engineers  in  uncertainty  as  to 
how  much  they  may  plan  to  do  in  the  year  ahead  of 
them.  Big  works  cannot  be  completed  economically, 
either  as  to  time  or.  money,  unless  the  man  who  is  mak- 
ing the  plan  can  proceed  upon  the  theory  that  the  money 
will  be  forthcoming  as  fast  as  he  can  economically  spend 
it." 

In  view  of  the  foregoing,  I  cannot  myself  claim  to  be 
free  from  river  theory.  It  seems  to  me  clear  that  the 
Mississippi  should  be  under  exclusive  Federal  control 
from  source  to  mouth;  that  the  various  commissions 
should  be  abolished,  and  that  the  whole  matter  should 
be  in  the  hands  of  the  chief  of  United  States  Engineers, 
who  would  have  ample  funds  with  which  to  carry  on 
work  of  a  permanent  character. 

As  one  among  countless  items  pointing  to  the  need 
of  Federal  control,  consider  the  case  of  the  Tensas  Levee 
Board,  one  of  the  eight  local  boards  in  Louisiana.     This 

503 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

board  does  not  build  any  levees  whatsoever  in  the 
State  of  Louisiana,  but  does  all  its  work  with  Lou- 
isiana money,  in  the  State  of  Arkansas,  where  it  has 
constructed,  and  maintains,  eighty-two  miles  of  levees, 
protecting  the  northeastern  corner  of  Louisiana  from 
floods  which  would  originate  in  Arkansas.  These  same 
levees,  however,  also  protect  large  tracts  of  land  in  Ar- 
kansas, for  which  protection  the  inhabitants  of  Arkan- 
sas do  not  pay  one  cent,  knowing  that  their  Louisiana 
neighbors  are  forced,  for  their  own  safety,  to  do  the 
work. 

Cairo,  Illinois,  is  the  barometer  of  the  river's  rise 
and  fall,  the  gage  at  that  point  being  used  as  the  basis 
for  estimates  for  the  entire  river  below  Cairo.  These 
estimates  are  made  by  computations  which  are  so  ac- 
curate that  Vicksburg,  Baton  Rouge,  and  New  Orleans 
know,  days  or  even  weeks  in  advance,  when  to  expect 
high  water,  and  within  a  few  inches  of  the  precise  height 
the  floods  wall  reach. 

Some  years  since,  the  United  States  engineer  in  charge 
of  a  river  district  embracing  a  part  of  Louisiana,  noti- 
fied the  local  levee  boards  that  unusually  high  water 
might  be  expected  on  a  certain  date  and  that  several 
hundred  miles  of  levees  would  have  to  be  "capped"  in 
order  to  prevent  overflow.  The  local  boards  in  turn  no- 
tified the  planters,  in  sections  where  capping  was  neces- 
sary. 

One  of  the  planters  so  notified  was  an  old  Cajun — 
Cajun  being  a  corruption  of  the  word  "Acadian,"  denot- 

504 


fa 
Crq 


P3 


THE  BAFFLING  MISSISSIPPI 
ing  those  persons  of  French  descent  driven  from  Acadia, 
in  Canada,  by  the  British  many  years  ago.     This  old 
man  did  not  beHeve  that  the  river  v^^ould  rise  as  high  as 
predicted  and  v^as  not  disposed  to  cap  his  levee. 

''But,"  said  the  member  of  the  local  levee  board,  who 
interviewed  him,  ''the  United  States  engineer  says  you 
will  have  to  put  two  twelve-inch  planks,  one  above  the 
other,  on  top  of  your  levee,  and  back  them  with  earth,  or 
else  the  water  will  come  over." 

At  last  the  old  fellow  consented. 

Presently  the  floods  came.  The  water  mounted, 
mounted,  mounted.  Soon  it  was  halfway  up  the  lower 
plank;  then  it  rose  to  the  upper  one.  When  it  reached 
the  middle  of  that  plank  the  Cajun  became  alarmed  and 
called  upon  the  local  levee  board  for  help  to  raise  the 
capping  higher  still. 

"No,"  said  the  local  board  member  who  had  given 
him  the  original  warning,  "that  will  not  be  necessary. 
I  have  just  talked  to  the  United  States  engineer.  He 
says  the  water  will  drop  to-morrow." 

The  old  man  was  skeptical,  however,  and  was  not  sat- 
isfied until  the  board  member  ag;reed  that  in  case  the 
flood  failed  to  abate  next  day,  as  predicted,  the  board 
should  do  the  extra  capping.  This  settled,  a  nail  was 
driven  into  the  upper  plank  to  mark  the  water's  height. 

Sure  enough,  on  the  following  morning  the  river  had 
dropped  away  from  the  nail,  and  thereafter  it  continued 
to  fall. 

After  watching  the  decline  for  several  days,  the  Ca- 

505 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

jun,  very  much  puzzled,  called  on  his  friend,  the  local 
levee  board  member,  to  talk  the  matter  over. 

"Say,"  he  demanded,  'Svhat  kinda  man  dis  United 
States  engineer  is,  anyhow  ?  Firs'  he  tell  when  de  water 
comes.  Den  he  tell  jus'  how  high  she  comes.  Den  he 
tell  jus'  when  she  's  agoin'  to  fall.  What  kinda  man  is 
dat,  anyhow?     Is  he  been  one  Voodoo?" 

The  spirit  of  the  people  of  Arkansas,  Mississippi,  and 
Louisiana,  who  live,  in  flood  time,  in  the  precarious 
safety  afforded  by  the  levees,  is  characterized  by  the 
same  optimistic  fatalism  that  is  to  be  found  among  the 
inhabitants  of  the  slopes  of  Vesuvius  in  time  of  erup- 
tion. 

One  night,  a  good  many  years  ago,  I  ascended  Vesu- 
vius at  such  a  time,  and  I  remember  wtU  a  talk  I  had 
with  a  man  who  gave  me  wine  and  sausage  in  his  house, 
far  up  on  the  mountain  side,  at  about  two  o'clock  that 
morning. 

Seventeen  streams  of  lava  were  already  flowing 
down,  and  signs  of  imminent  disaster  were  at  hand. 

"Aren't  you  afraid  to  stay  here  with  your  family?" 
I  asked  the  man. 

"No,"  he  replied.  "Three  times  I  have  seen  it  worse 
than  this.  I  have  lived  here  always,  and" — with  a  good 
Italian  smile — "it  is  evident,  signore,  that  I  am  still 
alive." 

Less  than  a  week  later  I  read  in  a  newspaper  that 
this  man's  house,  which  was  known  as  Casa  Bianca,  to- 

506 


THE  BAFFLING  MISSISSIPPI 

gether  with  his  vineyards  and  his  precious  wine  cellars, 
tunneled  into  the  mountain  side,  had  been  obliterated  by 
a  stream  of  lava. 

Precisely  as  he  went  about  his  affairs  when  destruc- 
tion threatened,  so  do  the  planters  along  the  Mississippi. 
But  there  is  this  difference:  against  Vesuvius  no  pre- 
caution can  avail ;  whereas,  in  the  case  of  a  Mississippi 
flood,  foresight  may  save  life  and  property.  For  in- 
stance, many  planters  build  mounds  large  enough  to  ac- 
commodate their  barns,  and  all  their  live  stock.  Like- 
wise, when  floods  are  coming,  they  construct  false  floors 
in  their  houses,  elevating  their  furniture  above  high- 
water  mark,  so  that,  if  the  whole  house  is  not  carried 
away,  they  may  return  to  something  less  than  utter 
ruin.  It  is  the  custom,  also,  to  place  ladders  against 
trees,  in  the  branches  of  which  provisions  are  kept  in 
time  of  danger,  and  to  have  skiffs,  containing  food  and 
water,  ready  on  the  galleries  of  the  houses. 


507 


CHAPTER  XLVTII 
OLD  RIVER  DAYS 

AMONG  the  honored  citizens  of  Vicksburg,  at  the 
time  of  our  visit,  were  a  number  of  old  steam- 
boat men  who  knew  the  river  in  its  golden  days ; 
among  them,  Captain  "Mose"  Smith,  Captain  Tom 
Young,  Captain  W.  S.  (''Billy")  Jones,  and  Captain  S. 
H.  Parisot — the  latter  probably  the  oldest  surviving 
Mississippi  River  captain. 

We  were  sent  to  see  Captain  Parisot  at  his  house, 
where  he  received  us  kindly,  entertained  us  for  an  hour 
or  more  with  reminiscences,  and  showed  us  a  most  in- 
teresting collection  of  souvenirs  of  the  river,  including 
photographs  of  famous  boats,  famous  deck  loads  of  cot- 
ton, and  famous  characters:  among  the  latter  the  cele- 
brated rivals.  Captain  John  W.  Cannon  of  the  Robert 
E.  Lee  and  Captain  Thomas  P.  Leathers  of  the  Natchez. 
Captain  Parisot  knew  both  these  men  well,  and  was  him- 
self aboard  the  Lee  at  the  time  of  her  famous  race  with 
the  Natchez  from  New  Orleans  to  St.  Louis. 

*'We  left  New  Orleans  3^  minutes  ahead  of  the 
Natchez,"  said  Captain  Parisot,  "made  the  run  to  Vicks- 
burg in  24  hours  and  28  minutes,  beat  her  to  Cairo  by 

508 


OLD  RIVER  DAYS 

I  hour  and  12  minutes,  and  to  St.  Louis  by  more  than  3 
hours." 

Captain  Parisot's  father  was  a  soldier  under  Na- 
poleon I,  and  moved  to  Warren  County,  Mississippi, 
after  having  been  wounded  at  Moscow.  He  built,  at 
the  foot  of  Main  Street,  Vicksburg,  the  first  brick  house 
that  city  had. 

"There  was  a  law  in  France,"  said  the  captain,  "that 
any  citizen  absent  from  the  country  for  thirty-five  years 
lost  all  claim  to  property.  My  father's  people  were 
pretty  well  off,  so  in  '42  he  started  back,  but  he  was 
taken  ill  and  died  in  New  Orleans." 

Captain  Parisot  was  born  in  1828,  and  in  1847  began 
"learning  the  river."  In  1854  he  became  part  owner  of 
a  boat,  and  three  years  later  purchased  one  of  his 
own. 

"I  bought  her  in  Cincinnati,"  he  said.  Then,  reflec- 
tively, he  added:  "There  was  a  good  deal  of  drinking 
in  those  days.  When  I  brought  her  down  on  her  first 
trip  I  had  183  tons  of  freight,  and  500  barrels  of  whisky, 
from  Cincinnati,  for  one  little  country  store — Barksdale 
&  McFarland's,  at  Yazoo  City." 

"There  was  a  good  deal  of  gambling,  too,  was  n't 
there?"  one  of  us  suggested. 

"There  was  indeed,"  smiled  the  old  captain.  "Every 
steamboat  was  a  gambling  house,  and  there  used  to  be 
big  games  before  the  war." 

"How  big?" 

"Well,"  he  returned,  "as  Captain  Leathers  once  put 

509 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

it,  it  used  to  be  'nigger  ante  and  plantation  limit.'  And 
that 's  no  joke  about  playing  for  niggers  either.  Those 
old  planters  would  play  for  anything.  I  've  known  peo- 
ple to  get  on  a  boat  at  Yazoo  City  to  come  to  Vicks- 
burg,  and  get  in  a  game,  and  never  get  off  at  Vicks- 
burg  at  all — just  go  back  to  Yazoo;  yes,  and  come  down 
again,  to  keep  the  game  going. 

"There  was  a  saloon  called  the  Exchange  near  our 
house  in  Yazoo,  and  I  remember  once  my  father  got 
into  a  game,  there,  with  a  gambler  named  Spence 
Thrift.  That  was  before  the  war.  Thrift  was  a  ter- 
rible stiff  l^luffer.  When  he  got  ready  to  clean  up, 
he  'd  shove  up  his  whole  pile.  Well,  he  did  that  to  my 
father.  Thrift's  pile  was  twenty-two  hundred  dollars, 
and  all  my  father  had  in  front  of  him  was  eight  hundred. 
But  he  owned  a  young  negro  named  Calvin,  so  he  called 
Calvin,  and  told  him:  'Here,  boy!  Jump  up  on  the 
table.'  That  equalled  the  gambler's  pile;  and  it  finished 
him — he  threw  down  his  hand,  beaten. 

"Business  in  those  times  was  done  largely  on  friend- 
ship. It  used  to  be  said  that  I  'owned'  the  Yazoo  River 
when  I  was  running  my  line.  I  knew  everybody  up 
there.  They  were  my  friends,  and  they  gave  me  their 
business  for  that  reason,  and  also  because  I  brought  the 
cotton  down  here  to  Vicksburg,  and  reshipped  it  from 
here  on,  down  the  river.  It  was  considered  an  advan- 
tage to  reship  cotton  because  moving  it  from  one  boat  to 
another  knocked  the  mud  off  the  bales. 

"There  used  to  be  some  enormous  cargoes  of  cotton 

510 


OLD  RIVER  DAYS 

carried.  The  largest  boat  on  the  river  was  the  Henry 
Frank,  owned  by  Frank  Hicks  of  Memphis.  She  ran 
between  Memphis  and  New  Orleans,  and  on  one  trip 
carried  9226  bales.  Those  were  the  old-style  bales,  of 
course.  They  weighed  425  to  450  pounds  each,  as 
against  550  to  600  pounds,  which  is  the  weight  of  a  bale 
to-day,  now  that  powerful  machinery  is  used  to  make 
them.  The  heavy  bale  came  into  use  partly  to  beat 
transportation  charges,  as  rates  were  not  made  by 
weight,  but  at  so  much  per  bale. 

"The  land  up  the  Yazoo  belonged  to  the  State,  and 
the  State  sold  it  for  $1.25  per  acre.  The  fellows  that 
got  up  there  first  were  n't  any  too  anxious  to  see  new 
folks  coming  in  and  entering  land.  Used  to  try  all  kinds 
of  schemes  to  get  them  out. 

"There  were  two  brothers  up  there  named  Parker. 
One  of  them  was  a  surveyor — we  called  him  'Baldy' — 
and  the  other  was  lumbering,  getting  timber  out  of  the 
cypress  breaks  and  rafting  it  down.  Almost  all  the 
timber  used  from  Vicksburg  to  New  Orleans  came  out 
of  there. 

"One  time  a  man  came  up  the  Yazoo  to  take  up  land 
and  went  to  stop  with  Baldy  Parker.  When  they  sat 
down  to  dinner  Baldy  took  some  flour  and  sprinkled  it 
all  over  his  meat. 

"  'What 's  that?'  asked  the  stranger. 

"  'Quinine,'  says  Baldy.     'Have  n't  you  got  any?' 

"  'No,'  says  the  fellow ;  'what  would  I  want  it  for  ?' 

"  'You  '11  find  out  if  you  go  out  there  in  the  swamps,' 

511 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Baldy  tells  him.  'It 's  full  of  malaria.  We  eat  quinine 
on  everything.' 

*'The  fellow  was  quiet  through  the  rest  of  the  meal. 

*Tretty  soon  they  got  up  to  go  out,  and  Baldy  took  up 
a  pair  of  stovepipes. 

"  'What  do  you  do  with  them  pipes?'  asks  the  stran- 
ger. 

"  'Wear  'em,  of  course,'  says  Baldy.  'Have  n't  you 
got  any?' 

"  'No,'  says  the  fellow.     'What  for?' 

"  'Why,'  says  Baldy,  'the  rattlesnakes  out  there  will 
bite  the  legs  right  off  of  you.' 

"With  that  the  fellow  had  enough.  He  did  n't  go 
any  farther,  but  turned  around  and  took  the  boat  down 
the  river." 

In  all  his  years  as  captain  and  line  owner  on  the  river. 
Captain  Parisot  never  lost  a  vessel.  "I  never  insured 
against  sinking,"  he  told  us.  "Just  against  fire.  But 
I  got  the  best  pilots  I  could  hire.  In  all  I  built  twenty- 
seven  steamboats.  I  had  $150,000  worth  of  boats  when 
I  sold  my  line  in  1880.  After  I  sold  they  did  lose  some 
boats." 

Later  we  saw  Captain  "Billy"  Jones,  a  much  younger 
man  than  Captain  Parisot,  yet  old  enough  to  have  known 
the  river  in  its  prime.  Captain  Jones  deserted  the  river 
years  ago,  and  is  now  a  golfer  with  a  prosperous  bank- 
ing business  on  the  side. 

"Captain  Parisot  was  right  when  he  said  business  on 
the  river  was  done  largely  on  friendship,"  said  Captain 

512 


0 


OLD  RIVER  DAYS 

Jones.  "Also  business  used  to  be  turned  down  for  the 
opposite  reason.  There  was  a  historic  case  of  that  in 
this  town. 

"Captain  Tom  Leathers  was  in  the  habit  of  refus- 
ing to  take  freight  on  the  Natchez  if  he  did  n't  hke  the 
shipper  or  the  consignee.  For  some  reason  or  other  he 
had  it  in  for  the  firm  of  Lamkin  &  Eggleston,  wholesale 
grocers  here  in  Vicksburg,  and  declined  their  freight. 
They  sued  him  in  the  Circuit  Court  and  got  judgment. 
Leathers  carried  the  case  to  the  Supreme  Court,  but  the 
verdict  was  sustained  and  he  had  to  pay  $2500  damages. 
He  was  furious. 

"  'What 's  the  use,'  he  said,  'of  being  a  steamboat  cap- 
tain if  you  can't  tell  people  to  go  to  hell?'  " 

It  is  the  lamentable  fact,  and  I  must  face  it,  and  so 
must  you  if  you  intend  to  read  on,  that  the  language 
of  the  river  was  rough.  At  least  ninety-nine  out  of 
every  hundred  river  stories  are,  therefore,  not  printable 
in  full.  Either  they  must  be  vitiated  by  deletions,  or 
interpreted  at  certain  points  by  blanks  and  "blanketys." 
As  for  me,  I  prefer  the  blankety-blanks  and  I  consider 
that  this  method  of  avoiding  the  complete  truth  re- 
lieves me  of  all  responsibility.  And  of  course,  if  that  is 
so,  it  absolves,  at  the  same  time,  good  Captain  "Billy" 
Jones,  or  any  one  else  who  may  have  happened  to  tell  me 
the  stories. 

Both  Leathers  and  Cannon  were  large,  powerful  men, 
and  they  always  hated  each  other.  Leathers  was  never 
popular,  for  he  was  very  arrogant,  but  he  had  a  great 

513 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

reputation  for  pushing  the  Xatclicc  through  on  time. 
Also,  such  friends  as  he  did  have  always  stuck  by  him. 

Something  of  the  feeling  between  the  two  old  river 
characters  is  revealed  in  the  following  story  related  by 
Captain  Jones : 

''Ed  Snodgrass,  who  lived  in  St.  Joseph,  La.,  was  a 
friend  of  both  Cannon  and  Leathers.  When  the  Nat- 
chez  would  arrive  at  St.  Joseph,  he  would  go  and  give 
Leathers  news  about  Cannon,  and  when  the  Lcc  came  in 
he  would  see  Cannon  and  tell  him  about  Leathers. 

"Well,  one  time  Leathers  was  laid  up  with  a  car- 
buncle on  his  back,  and  brought  a  doctor  up  on  the  boat 
with  him.  So,  of  course,  Ed  Snodgrass  told  Cannon 
about  it  when  he  came  along. 

"  'A  carbuncle,  eh  ?'  said  Cannon. 

"  'Yes,"  said  Ed. 

"  'Well,'  said  Cannon,  'you  tell  the  old  blankety- 
blank-blank  that  I  had  a  brother — a  bigger,  stronger 
man  than  I  am — and  he  had  one  o'  them  things  and  died 
in  two  weeks.' 

"Soon  after  that  Cannon  made  a  misstep  when  back- 
ing the  Natchez  out,  at  Natchez,  and  fell,  breaking  his 
collar  bone.  Of  course  Ed  Snodgrass  gave  the  news  to 
Leathers  when  he  came  along. 

"'Huh!'  said  Leathers.  'His  collar  bone,  eh?  You 
tell  the  old  blankety-blank-blank  that  I  wish  it  had  been 
his  blankety-blank  neck !'  " 

I  asked  Captain  Jones  for  stories  about  gambling. 

"After  the  war,"  he  said,   "there  were  n't  the  liig 

514 


OLD  RIVER  DAYS 

poker  games  there  used  to  be.  Mostly  we  had  sucker 
games  then.  There  was  a  gambler  named  George 
Duval  who  wrote  a  book — or,  rather,  he  had  somebody 
write  it  for  him,  for  he  was  a  very  ignorant  fellow,  and 
began  his  life  calking  the  seams  of  boats  in  a  shipyard. 
He  had  a  partner  who  was  known  as  'J^w  Mose,'  who 
used  to  dress  like  a  rich  planter.  He  wore  a  broad- 
Ijrimmed  hat  and  a  very  elegant  tail  coat,  and  was  a  big, 
handsome  man. 

"After  the  boat  left  New  Orleans,  this  ']ew  Mose' 
would  disguise  himself  with  whiskers  and  goggles,  go  to 
the  barber  shop  and  lay  out  his  game.  George  Duval 
and  a  fellow  called  'Canada  Bill'  were  the  cappers. 
They  would  bring  in  suckers,  get  their  money,  and  gen- 
erally get  off  the  boat  about  Baton  Rouge. 

"Once  when  I  was  a  clerk  on  the  Robert  E.  Lee, 
Duval  got  a  young  fellow  in  tow,  and  the  young  fellow 
wanted  to  bet  on  the  game,  but  he  had  a  friend  with  him, 
and  his  friend  kept  pulling  him  away. 

"Later,  when  Duval  had  given  up  the  idea  of  getting 
this  young  fellow's  money,  and  closed  up  his  game,  he 
appeared  in  the  social  hall  of  the  boat  with  a  small  bag 
held  up  to  his  face. 

"Somebody  asked  him  what  was  in  the  bag. 

"  Tt  's  hot  salt,'  he  said.  T  've  got  a  toothache,  and  a 
bag  of  hot  salt  is  the  best  thing  in  the  world  for  tooth- 
ache.' 

"Presently,  when  he  went  to  his  stateroom  to  get 
something,  he  left  the  bag  of  salt  on  the  stove  to  heat  it 

515 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

up.  While  he  was  gone  somebody  suggested,  as  a 
joke,  that  they  dump  out  the  salt  and  fill  the  bag  with 
ashes,  instead.  So  they  did  it.  And  when  Duval  came 
back  he  held  it  up  to  his  face  again,  and  seemed  per- 
fectly satisfied. 

"  'How  does  it  feel  now?'  one  of  the  fellows  asked. 

"  Tine,'  said  Duval.  Tlot  salt  is  the  best  thing 
going.' 

"At  that,  the  man  who  had  prevented  the  young  fel- 
low from  betting,  down  in  the  barl)er  shop,  earlier  in  the 
day,  offered  to  bet  Duval  a  hundred  dollars  that  the  bag 
did  n't  contain  salt. 

''Duval  took  the  bet  and  raised  him  back  another  hun- 
dred. But  the  man  had  only  fifty  dollars  left.  How- 
ever, another  fellow,  standing  in  the  crowd,  put  in  the 
extra  fifty  to  make  two  hundred  dollars  a  side. 

"Then  Duval  opened  the  bag,  and  it  was  salt.  Uc 
had  changed  the  bags,  and  the  fellows  who  worked  up 
the  trick  were  his  cappers." 

One  of  the  old-time  river  gamblers  was  an  individual, 
blind  in  one  eye,  known  as  "One-eyed  Murphy."  Mur- 
phy was  an  extremely  artful  manipulator  of  cards,  and 
made  a  business  of  cheating.  One  day,  shortly  after 
the  Natchez  had  backed  out  from  New  Orleans  and  got 
under  way,  Marion  Knowles,  a  picturesque  gentleman 
of  the  period,  and  one  who  had  the  reputation  of  being 
polite  even  in  the  most  trying  circumstances,  and  no 
matter  how  well  he  had  dined,  came  in  and  stood  for  a 
time  as  a  spectator  beside  a  table  at  which  Murphy  w^as 

516 


OLD  RIVER  DAYS 

playing  poker  with  some  guileless  planters.  Mr. 
Knowles  was  not  himself  guileless,  and  very  shortly  he 
perceived  that  the  one-eyed  gambler  was  dealing  himself 
cards  from  the  bottom  of  the  pack.  Thereupon  he  drew 
his  revolver  from  his  pocket  and  rapping  with  it  on  the 
table  addressed  the  assembly: 

"Gentlemen,"  he  said,  speaking  in  courtly  fashion, 
'T  regret  to  say  that  there  is  something  wrong  here.  I 
will  not  call  any  names,  neither  will  I  make  any  personal 
allusions.  But  if  it  does  n't  stop,  damn  me  if  I  don't 
shoot  his  other  eye  out!" 

I  cannot  drop  the  river,  and  stories  of  river  gam- 
bling, without  referring  to  one  more  tale  which  is  a 
classic.  It  is  a  long  story  about  a  big  poker  game,  and 
to  tell  it  properly  one  must  know  the  exact  words.  I  do 
not  know  them,  and  therefore  shall  not  attempt  to  tell 
the  whole  story,  but  shall  give  you  only  the  beginning. 

It  is  supposed  to  be  told  by  a  Virginian. 

'There  was  me,"  he  says,  "and  another  very  distin- 
guished gentleman  from  Virginia  and  a  gentleman  from 
Kentucky,  and  a  man  from  Ohio,  and  a  fellow  from 
New  York,  and  a  blankety-blank  from  Boston — " 

That  is  all  I  know  of  the  story,  but  I  can  guess  who 
got  the  money  in  that  game. 

Can't  you  ? 


517 


CHAPTER  XLiX 
WHAT  MEMPHIS  HAS  ENDURED 

AN  article  on  Memphis,  published  in  the  year  1855, 
gives  the  population  of  the  place  as  about 
13,000  (one  quarter  of  the  number  slaves),  and 
calls  Memphis  "the  most  promising  town  in  the  South- 
west. It  predicts  that  a  railroad  will  some  day  connect 
^Memphis  with  Little  Rock,  Arkansas,  and  that  a  direct 
line  between  Memphis  and  Cincinnati  may  even  be  con- 
structed. This  article  begins  the  history  of  Memphis 
in  the  year  1820,  when  the  place  had  50  inhabitants. 
In  1840  the  settlement  had  grown  to  1,700,  and  fif- 
teen years  thereafter  it  was  almost  eight  times  that 
size. 

Your  Memphian,  however,  is  not  at  all  content  to 
date  from  1820.  He  begins  the  history  of  Memphis 
with  the  date  May  8,  1541 — a  time  when  Henry  VIII 
was  establishing  new  matrimonial  records  in  England, 
when  Queen  Elizabeth  was  a  little  girl,  and  Shakes- 
peare, Bacon,  Galileo  and  Cromwell  were  yet  unborn. 
For  that  was  the  date  when  a  Spanish  gentleman  bear- 
ing some  personal  resemblance  to  "Uncle  Joe"  Cannon 
— though  he  was  younger,  had  black  hair  and  beard, 
was  dififerently  dressed  and  did  not  chew  long  black 

5 18 


WHAT  MEMPHIS  HAS  ENDURED 

cigars — arrived  at  the  lower  Chickasaw  Bluffs,  from 
which  the  city  of  Memphis  now  overlooks  the  Missis- 
sippi River.  This  gentleman  was  Hernando  De  Soto, 
and  with  his  soldiers  and  horses  he  had  marched  from 
Tampa  Bay,  Florida,  hunting  for  El  Dorado,  but  find- 
ing instead,  a  lot  of  poor  villages  peopled  by  savages 
whom  he  killed  in  large  numbers,  having  been  brought 
up  to  that  sort  of  work  by  Pizarro,  under  whom  he 
served  in  the  conquest  of  Peru.  It  seems  to  be  well 
established,  through  records  left  by  De  Soto's  secretary, 
and  other  men  who  were  with  him,  and  through  land- 
marks mentioned  by  them,  that  De  Soto  and  his  com- 
mand camped  where  Memphis  stands,  crossed  the  Mis- 
sissippi at  this  point  in  boats  which  they  built  for  the 
purpose,  and  marched  on  to  an  Indian  village  situated 
on  the  mound,  a  few  miles  distant,  which  now  gives 
Mound  City,  Arkansas,  its  name.  One  hundred  and 
thirty-two  years  later  Marquette  passed  by  on  his  way 
down  the  river,  and  nine  years  after  him  La  Salle,  but 
so  far  as  is  known,  neither  stopped  at  the  site  of  Mem- 
phis, though  they  must  have  noticed  as  they  passed, 
that  the  river  is  narrower  here  than  at  any  point  within 
hundreds  of  miles,  and  that  the  Chickasaw  Bluffs  afford 
about  as  good  a  place  for  a  settlement  as  may  be  found 
along  the  reaches  of  the  lower  river,  being  high  enough 
for  safety,  and  flat  on  top.  The  first  white  man  known 
to  have  visited  the  actual  site  of  Memphis  after  De 
Soto,  was  De  Bienville,  the  French  Governor  of  Louisi- 
ana, who  came  in  1739.     De  Bienville  found  the  Chick- 

519 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

asaw  village  where  De  Soto  had  found  it  two  centuries 
earlier;  but  whereas  De  Soto  managed  to  avoid  battle 
with  the  inhabitants  of  this  particular  village,  De  Bien- 
ville came  to  attack  them,  lie  fought  them  near  their 
village,  was  defeated,  and  retired  to  Mobile. 

Thus  this  part  of  the  United  States  belonged  first  to 
Spain,  and  then  to  France;  but  in  1762  France  ceded 
it  back  to  Spain,  and  in  the  year  following,  Spain  and 
France  together  ceded  their  territory  in  the  eastern  part 
of  the  continent  to  England.  The  next  change  came 
with  the  Revolution,  when  the  United  States  came  into 
being.  The  Spanish  were,  however,  still  in  possession  of 
the  vast  territory  of  Louisiana,  to  the  west  of  the  Missis- 
sippi. In  1795,  Gayoso,  Spanish  Governor  of  Louis- 
iana, came  across  and  built  a  fort  on  the  east  side  of  the 
river,  but  was  presently  ousted  by  the  United  States. 
In  1820,  as  has  been  said,  the  settlement  of  Memphis  had 
begun,  one  of  the  early  proprietors  having  been  yVndrcw 
Jackson.  Some  of  the  first  settlers  wished  to  name  the 
place  Jackson,  in  honor  of  the  general,  but  Jackson  him- 
self, it  is  said,  decided  on  the  name  Memphis,  because 
the  position  of  the  town  suggested  that  of  ancient 
Memphis,  on  the  Nile. 

In  1857  Memphis  got  her  first  railroad — the  Memphis 
&  Charleston — connecting  her  with  Charleston,  South 
Carolina.  About  the  time  the  road  was  completed  there 
were  severe  financial  panics  which  held  the  city  back; 
also  there  was  trouble,  as  in  so  many  other  river  towns, 
with  hordes  of  gamblers  and  desperadoes.     Judge  J.  P. 

520 


Citizens  go  at  midday  to  tlie  square  where  they  buy  popcorn  for  the  squirrels 
and  pigeons — Memphis 


WHAT  MEMPHIS  HAS  ENDURED 

Young,  in  his  "History  of  Memphis,''  tells  of  an  inter- 
esting episode  of  those  times.  There  were  two  profes- 
sional gamblers,  father  and  son,  of  the  name  of  Able. 
The  father  shot  a  man  in  a  saloon  brawl,  and  soon  after, 
the  son  committed  a  similar  crime  of  violence.  A  great 
mob  started  to  take  the  younger  Able  out  of  jail  and 
lynch  him,  but  one  firm  citizen,  addressing  them  from  the 
balcony  of  a  hotel,  persuaded  them  to  desist.  Next  day, 
however,  there  was  a  mass  meeting  to  discuss  the  case 
of  Able.  At  this  meeting  the  hotheads  prevailed,  and 
Able  was  taken  from  the  jail  by  a  mob  of  three  thou- 
sand men.  When  the  noose  was  around  his  neck,  and 
he  and  his  mother  and  sister  were  pleading  that  his  life 
be  spared,  the  same  man  who  had  previously  prevented 
mob  action,  stepped  boldly  up,  cut  the  rope  from  Abel's 
neck,  and  assisted  him  to  fly,  standing  between  him  and 
the  mob,  fighting  the  mob  off,  and  finally  getting  Able 
back  into  the  jail.  When  the  mob  stormed  the  jail, 
furious  at  having  been  circumvented  by  a  single  man, 
the  same  powerful  figure  appeared  at  the  jail  door  with 
a  pistol,  and,  incredible  though  it  seems,  actually  held 
the  mob  at  bay  until  it  finally  dispersed.  This  man  was 
Nathan  Bedford  Forrest,  later  the  brilliant  Confederate 
cavalry  leader.  Forrest  and  his  wife  are  buried  in 
Memphis,  in  a  square  called  Forrest  Park,  under  a  fine 
equestrian  monument,  by  C.  H.  Niehaus. 

Before  the  war  Forrest  was  a  member  of  the  slave- 
dealing  firm  of  Forrest  &  Maples,  of  Memphis.  Sub- 
joined is  a  photographic  repreduction  of  an  advertise- 

521 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

ment  of  this  firm,  which  appeared  in  the  Memphis  City 
Directory  for  1855-6. 

OITY    DIRECTORT.  251 

FOREEST  &  MAPLES. 

SLAIE  DMIERI 

Belwctn  Sccotid  and  TJilrd, 

Have  constantly  on  hand  the  best  selected  as- 
sortment of 


at  their  Negro  Mart,  to  be  found  in  the  city. 
They  are  daily  receiving  from  Virginia,  Ken- 
tucky and  Missouri,  fresh  supphes  of  likely 
Young  Negroes. 

Negroes  Sold  on  Commission^ 

and  the  highest  market  price  always  paid  for 
good  stock.  Their  Jail  is  capable  of  contain- 
ing Three  Hundred,  and  for  comfort,  neatness 
and  safety,  is  the  best  arranged  of  any  in  the 
Union.  Persons  wishing  to  purchase,  are  invi- 
ted to  examine  their  stock  before  purchasing 
elsewhere. 

They  have  on  hand  at  present,  Fifty  likely 
young  Negroes,  comprising  Field  hands,  Me- 
chanics, House  and  Body  Servants,  &c. 

When  the  Civil  War  loomed  close,  sentiment  in  Mem- 
phis was  divided,  but  at  a  call  for  troops  for  the  Union, 

522 


WHAT  MEMPHIS  HAS  ENDURED 

the  State  of  Tennessee  balked,  and  soon  after  it  seceded 
from  the  Union  and  joined  the  Confederacy.  Many 
people  believed,  at  that  time,  that  if  the  entire  South 
united,  the  North  would  not  dare  fight.  When  the  war 
came,  however,  Memphis  knew  where  she  stood;  it  is 
said  that  no  city  of  the  same  size  (22,600)  furnished  so 
many  men  to  the  Confederate  armies.  In  1862,  when 
the  Union  forces  got  control  of  the  river  to  the  north 
and  the  south  of  the  city,  it  became  evident  that  Mem- 
phis was  likely  to  be  taken.  A  fleet  of  Union  gunboats 
came  down  and  defeated  the  Confederate  fleet  in  the 
river  before  the  city,  while  the  populace  lined  the  banks 
and  looked  on.  The  city,  being  without  military  pro- 
tection, then  surrendered,  and  was  occupied  by  troops 
under  Sherman.  Nor,  with  the  exception  of  one  period 
of  a  few  hours'  duration,  did  it  ever  again  come  under 
Confederate  control.  That  was  when  Forrest  made  his 
famous  raid  in  1864,  an  event  which  exhibited  not  only 
the  dash  and  hardihood  of  that  intrepid  leader,  but  also 
his  strategy  and  his  sardonic  humor. 

General  A.  J.  Smith,  with  13,000  Union  soldiers  was 
marching  on  the  great  grain  district  of  central  Missis- 
sippi, and  was  forcing  Forrest,  who  had  but  3,500  men, 
to  the  southward.  Unable  to  meet  Smith's  force  on 
anything  like  equal  terms,  Forrest  conceived  the  idea 
of  making  a  "run  around  the  end"  and  striking  at  Mem- 
phis, which  was  Smith's  base.  Taking  1,500  picked 
men  and  horses,  he  executed  a  flanking  movement  over 
night,  and  before  Smith  knew  he  was  gone,  came  career- 

523 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

ing  into  Memphis  at  dawn  at  the  head  of  500  galloping, 
yelling  men — many  of  them  Memphis  boys.  There 
were  some  7,000  Union  troops  in  and  about  Memphis  at 
this  time,  but  they  were  surprised  out  of  their  slum.bers, 
and  made  no  effective  resistance.  The  only  part  of  For- 
rest's plan  which  miscarried  was  his  scheme  to  capture 
three  leading  Union  officers,  whu  were  then  stationed 
in  Memphis:  Generals  C.  C.  Washburn,  S.  A.  Ilurlbut 
and  R.  P.  Buckland.  General  Ilurlbut's  escape  oc- 
curred by  reason  of  the  fact  that  instead  of  having 
passed  the  night  at  the  old  Gayoso  Hotel,  where  he  made 
his  headquarters,  he  happened  to  be  visiting  a  brother 
officer,  elsewhere.  General  Washburn  was  warned  by 
a  courier  and  made  his  escape  in  his  nightclothes  and 
bare  feet  from  the  residence  he  occupied  as  headquarters, 
running  down  alleys  to  the  river,  and  thence  along 
under  the  bluff  to  the  Union  fortifications.  Forrest's 
men  found  the  general's  papers,  uniform,  hat,  boots 
and  sword  in  his  bedroom,  and  also  found  there  Mrs. 
Washburn.  The  only  things  they  failed  to  find  were 
the  general's  nightshirt  and  the  general  himself,  who 
was  inside  it.  General  Buckland  also  avoided  capture 
by  the  narrowest  margin.  The  soldiers  first  went  to  the 
wrong  house  to  look  for  him.  That  gave  him  time  to 
escape. 

It  is  recorded  that,  later  in  the  day,  under  a  flag  of 
truce,  Forrest  sent  General  \\'ashburn  his  sword  and 
clothing  with  a  humorous  message,  informing  him,  at 
the  same  time,  that  he  had  600  Federal  prisoners  with- 

524 


WHAT  MEMPHIS  HAS  ENDURED 

out  shoes  or  clothing,  and  that  he  would  like  supplies 
for  them.  The  supplies,  we  are  told,  were  promptly 
forthcoming. 

Forrest  waited  until  he  was  sure  that  news  of  the 
raid  had  been  telegraphed  to  General  Smith  in  the  field. 
Then  he  cut  the  wires.  Smith  immediately  came  back 
toward  Memphis  with  his  army,  which  was  what  For- 
rest desired  him  to  do.  The  Confederates  then  retired 
from  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  city. 

Judge  Young,  in  his  history,  reports  that  when  Gen- 
eral Hurlbut  heard  of  the  raid  he  exclaimed,  "There  it 
goes  again!  They  superseded  me  with  Washburn  be- 
cause I  could  not  keep  Forrest  out  of  West  Tennessee, 
and  Washburn  cannot  keep  him  out  of  his  own  bed- 
room !" 

After  the  War  there  was  corruption  and  carpet-bag 
rule  in  Memphis,  and  Forrest  was  again  to  the  fore, 
becoming  "Grand  Wizard"  of  the  famous  Ku  Klux 
Klan,  the  mysterious  secret  organization  designed  to  in- 
timidate Scalawags,  Carpet-baggers  and  negroes,  whose 
arrogance  had  become  intolerable.  General  George  W. 
Gordon  prepared  the  oath  and  ritual  for  the  Klan,  which 
was  founded  in  the  town  of  Pulaski,  Giles  County,  Ten- 
nessee. General  Forrest  took  the  oath  in  1866,  in  Room 
10  of  the  old  Maxwell  House,  at  Nashville. 

It  is  my  belief  that  the  Ku  Klux  Klan  has  been  a  good 
deal  maligned.  Many  of  its  members  were  men  of  high 
type.     I  have  been  told,  for  instance,  that  one  southern 

525 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

gentleman  who  has  since  been  in  the  cabinet  of  a  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  was  active  in  the  Ku  Klux. 
I  withhold  his  name  because  the  purposes  of  the  Ku 
Klux  Klan,  and  the  urgent  need  which  called  it  into  be- 
ing, are  not  yet  fully  understood  in  the  North,  and  for 
the  further  reason  that  depredations  committed  by  other 
bodies  were  frequently  charged  to  the  Ku  Klux,  giving 
it  a  bad  name.  So  far  as  1  can  discover  the  Ku  Klux 
endeavored  to  avoid  violence  where  it  could  be  avoided. 
Its  aim  seems  to  have  been  to  frighten  negroes  and  bad 
whites  into  behaving  themselves  or  going  away ;  though 
sometimes,  of  course,  bad  characters  had  to  be  killed. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  the  ballot  was  denied 
former  Confederate  soldiers  for  quite  a  period  after  the 
War,  that  they  were  not  allowed  to  possess  firearms, 
and  that,  at  the  same  time,  negro  troops  were  quartered 
in  the  South.  In  many  parts  of  the  South  the  govern- 
ment and  the  courts  were  in  the  hands  of  third-rate 
Northerners  (carpet-baggers)  who  had  come  down  to 
dominate  the  defeated  section,  and  who  used  the  Scala- 
wags (disloyal  southern  whites)  and  negroes  for  their 
own  purposes.  Obviously  this  was  outrageous,  and 
equally  obviously,  a  proud  people,  even  though  defeated, 
could  not  endure  it.  The  service  performed  by  the  Ku 
Klux  Klan  seems  to  have  been  comparable  with  that 
rendered  by  the  Vigilantes  of  early  w^estern  days. 
Something  had  to  be  done  and  the  Klan  did  it. 

In  1869  General  Forrest  ordered  the  Klan  to  disband, 
which  it  did ;  but  owing  to  the  fact  that  it  was  a  secret 

526 


WHAT  MEMPHIS  HAS  ENDURED 

organization,  and  that  disguises  had  been  used,  it  was  an 
easy  matter  for  mobs,  not  actually  associated  with  the 
Ku  Klux,  to  assume  its  costume  and  commit  outrages  in 
its  name. 

In  writing  of  Raleigh  I  referred  to  the  post-bellum 
activities  of  the  Confederate  cruiser  Shenandoah.  Cap- 
tain Dabney  M.  Scales,  a  distinguished  citizen  of  Mem- 
phis, was  on  the  Shenandoah.  Born  in  Orange  County, 
Virginia,  in  1842,  Captain  Scales  was  appointed  to  the 
Naval  Academy  by  L.  Q.  C.  Lamar.  He  was  a  class- 
mate of  Captain  Clark,  later  of  the  Oregon.  When  the 
war  broke  out,  young  Scales  was  in  his  second  year  at 
the  Academy,  but  like  most  of  the  other  southern  cadets 
he  resigned  and  offered  his  services  to  the  South.  When 
commissioned  he  was  the  youngest  naval  officer  in  the 
Confederate  service.  Eight  months  after  the  War  was 
over,  the  Shenandoah  was  still  crusing  in  the  South 
Seas,  looking  for  Federal  merchantmen.  In  January 
1866,  somewhere  south  of  Australia,  she  overhauled  the 
British  bark  Baracouta,  taking  her  for  a  Yankee  man- 
o'-war  flying  the  British  flag  as  a  ruse.  Young  Scales 
was  sent  in  command  of  a  boarding  party,  and  was  in- 
formed by  the  skipper  of  the  Baracouta  that  the  Civil 
War  had  terminated  months  and  months  ago.  The 
Shenandoah  then  made  for  Liverpool.  In  the  mean- 
time a  Federal  court  had  ruled  that  her  officers  were 
gTiilty  of  piracy — a  hanging  oft"ense.  Naturally,  they 
did  not  dare  return  to  the  LTnited  States.     Young  Scales 

527 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

went  to  Mexico  and  remained  there  two  years  before 
coming  home.  When  the  Spanish  War  came,  Captain 
Scales  volunteered  and  was  made  navigating  officer  of 
naval  vessel.  At  the  time  of  our  visit  he  was  a  practis- 
ing lawyer  in  Memphis,  and  was  in  command  of  Com- 
pany A  of  the  Uniform  Confederate  Veterans,  a  body 
of  old  heroes  who  go  out  every  now  and  then  and  win 
the  first  prize  for  the  best  drilled  organization  operating 
Hardee's  tactics. 

Another  distinguished  citizen  of  Memphis  who  has 
lively  recollections  of  the  Civil  War,  is  the  Right  Rever- 
end Thomas  F.  Gailor,  Episcopal  Bishop  of  Tennessee. 
Bishop  Gailor,  who  succeeded  the  famous  Bishop  Ouin- 
tard,  is  my  ideal  of  everything  an  Episcopal  bishop — 
or  I  might  even  say  a  Church  of  England  bishop — ought 
to  be.  The  Episcopal  Church  seems  to  me  to  have  about 
it  more  ''style"  than  most  other  churches,  and  an  Episco- 
pal bishop  ought  not  to  look  the  ascetic.  Tie  ought  to 
be  well  filled  out,  well  dressed,  well  fed.  He  ought  to 
have  a  distinguished  appearance,  a  ruddy  complexion, 
a  good  voice,  and  a  lot  of  what  we  call  *'humanness" — 
including  humor.     All  these  qualities  Bishop  Gailor  has. 

In  the  bishop's  study,  in  Memphis,  hangs  the  sword 
of  his  father.  Major  Frank  M.  Gailor,  who  com- 
manded the  33rd  Mississippi  Regiment.  Major  Gailor 
was  killed  while  giving  a  drink  of  water  to  a  wounded 
brother  officer,  and  that  officer,  though  dying,  directed 
a  soldier  to  take  the  Major's  sword  and  see  that  it 
reached  Mrs.   Gailor,   in  Alemphis,  within  the  Union 

528 


WHAT  MEMPHIS  HAS  ENDURED 

lines.  A  ypung  woman,  a  Confederate  spy,  took  the 
sword,  and  wearing  it  next  her  body,  brought  it  through 
to  Mrs.  Gailor.  Somehow  or  other  it  became  known 
that  the  widow  had  her  husband's  sword,  and  as  the  pos- 
session of  arms  was  prohibited  to  citizens,  a  corporal 
and  guard  were  sent  to  the  house  to  search  for  it.  They 
found  it  between  the  mattresses  of  Mrs.  Gailor's  bed, 
and  confiscated  it.  Mrs.  Gailor  then  went  with  another 
lady  to  see  General  Washburn.  Her  friend  started  a 
long  harangue  upon  the  injustice  which  had  been  done, 
but  Mrs.  Gailor,  seeing  that  the  General  was  becoming 
impatient,  broke  in  saying:  "General,  soldiers  came  to 
my  house  and  took  away  my  dead  husband's  sword.  I 
can't  use  it,  nor  can  my  little  son.  I  want  it  back.  You 
would  want  your  boy  to  have  your  sword,  would  n't 
you?" 

''Of  course  I  would!"  cried  Washburn.  'Thank 
God  for  a  woman  who  can  say  what  she  has  to  say,  and 
be  done  with  it !" 

The  sword  was  returned. 

In  the  Spring  of  1863,  when  Bishop  Gailor  was  a 
child  of  about  seven  years,  he  accompanied  his  mother 
on  a  journey  by  wagon  from  Memphis  to  Jackson,  Mis- 
sissippi. The  only  other  member  of  the  party  was  a 
lady  who  had  driven  in  the  same  wagon  from  Jackson 
to  Kentucky,  to  get  the  body  of  her  brother,  a  Confeder- 
ate soldier  who  had  been  killed  there.  The  coffin  con- 
taining the  remains  was  carried  in  the  wagon.  When 
it  was  known  in  Memphis  that  Mrs.  Gailor  was  going 

529 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

through  the  lines,  a  great  nuiii)-  people  eame,  to  her  with 
letters  which  they  wished  to  send  to  friends.  Mrs. 
Gailor  sewed  many  of  the  letters  into  the  clothing  of  the 
little  boy.  ("I  remember  it  well,"  said  the  bishop.  "I 
felt  like  a  mummy.")  Also  one  of  Forrest's  spies  came 
with  important  papers,  asking  if  she  would  undertake 
to  deliver  them.  Only  by  very  clever  manipulation  did 
Mrs.  Gailor  get  the  papers  through,  for  everything  was 
carefully  searched.  After  they  had  passed  out  of  the 
northern  lines  they  met  one  of  Forrest's  pickets.  Mrs. 
Gailor  told  him  that  she  had  papers  for  the  general,  and 
before  long  Forrest  rode  up  with  his  staff  and  received 
them.  Then  the  two  women  and  the  little  boy,  with 
their  tragic  burden  in  the  wagon,  drove  along  on  their 
two-hundred  mile  journey.  And  later,  when  Jackson 
was  bombarded,  they  w^ere  there. 

Before  the  war  Alajor  Gailor  had  been  editor  of  the 
Memphis  "Avalanche,"  a  paper  which  was  suppressed 
when  the  Union  troops  took  the  town.  After  the  War 
the  "Avalanche"  was  started  up  again,  and  had  a  stormy 
time  of  it,  because  it  criticized  a  Carpet-bag  judge  who 
had  come  to  Memphis.  In  1889  the  "Avalanche"  was 
consolidated  with  the  "Appeal,"  another  famous  ante- 
bellum journal,  surviving  to-day  in  the  "Commercial- 
Appeal,"  a  strong  new^spaper,  edited  by  one  of  the  ablest 
journalists  in  the  South,  Mr.  C.  P.  J.  Mooney. 

When  Memphis  w^as  captured  the  "Appeal"  would 
have  been  suppressed,  as  the  "Avalanche"  w^as,  had  it 
been  there.     But  when  it  became  evident  that  Memphis 

530 


WHAT  MEMPHIS  HAS  ENDURED 

would  fall,  Mr.  S.  C.  Toof  (later  a  well-known  book 
publisher)  who  was  then  connected  with  the  "Appeal," 
packed  up  the  press  and  other  equipment  and  shipped 
them  to  Grenada,  Mississippi,  where  Mr.  B.  F.  Dill, 
editor  of  the  paper,  continued  to  bring  it  out.  When 
Grenada  was  threatened,  a  few  months  later,  Mr.  Dill 
moved  with  his  newspaper  equipment  to  Birmingham, 
where  for  a  second  time  he  resumed  publication.  His 
next  move  was  to  Atlanta.  There,  when  he  could  not 
get  news-print,  he  used  wallpaper,  or  any  sort  of  paper 
he  could  lay  his  hands  on.  When  Sherman  took  At- 
lanta the  "Appeal"  moved  again,  this  time  to  Columbus, 
Georgia,  where,  at  last,  it  was  captured,  and  its  press 
destroyed.  Wherever  it  went  it  remained  the  "Mem- 
phis Daily  Appeal,"  with  correspondents  in  all  southern 
armies.  No  wonder  a  paper  with  such  vitality  as  that, 
has  survived  and  become  great ! 

Poor  Memphis !  After  the  War  she  had  Reconstruc- 
tion to  contend  with;  after  Reconstruction,  financial  dif- 
ficulties; after  that,  pestilence.  In  1873,  when  the  pop- 
ulation of  the  city  was  about  40,000,  and  there  had  been 
a  long  period  of  hard  times,  yellow  fever  broke  out. 
The  condition  of  the  city  was  exceedingly  unsanitary. 
and  after  the  pestilence  had  passed,  was  allowed  to  re- 
main so,  though  at  that  time  the  origin  of  yellow  fever 
was,  of  course,  not  known,  and  it  was  assumed  that  the 
disease  resulted  from  lack  of  proper  sanitation. 

In  1878  there  was  another  yellow  fever  epidemic. 
The  first  case  developed  August  2,  but  the  news  was 

531 


AMERICAN  AD\'i:\'ri:Ri<:s 

suppressed  unlil  the  middle  (»1  ihc  iiKtiuh,  by  which  time 
a  number  of  cases  had  ccjme  down.  The  day  after  the 
news  became  known  22  new  cases  were  reported.  Ter- 
ror spread  through  the  town.  Hordes  of  people  tried 
to  flee  at  once.  Families  left  their  houses  with  the  doors 
wide  open  and  silver  stading  on  the  sideboards.  People 
flocked  to  the  trains ;  when  they  could  not  get  seats  they 
stood  in  the  aisles  or  clambered  onto  the  roofs  of  the 
cars;  if  they  could  not  get  in  at  car  doors  they  climbed 
in  through  the  windows,  and  sometimes,  when  the  fa- 
ther of  a  family  was  refused  admittance  to  a  crowded 
car,  he  would  force  a  way  in  for  his  wife  and  children 
at  the  pistol's  point. 

In  the  first  week  of  the  panic  there  were  1,500  cases, 
with  an  average  of  ten  deaths  daily;  in  the  next  week, 
3,000  cases  with  fifty  deaths  daily,  and  so  on  into  Sep- 
tember during  which  month  there  was  an  average  of 
8,000  to  10,000  cases  with  about  two  hundred  deaths  a 
day. 

Not  every  one  fled,  however.  Leading  citizens  re- 
mained, forming  a  relief  committee,  and  some  brave 
helpers  came  from  outside.  Thus  the  sick  and  needy 
were  attended  to,  though  of  course  many  of  the  volun- 
teers contracted  the  disease  and  perished. 

Added  to  the  epidemic  there  was,  as  so  often  happens 
in  such  circumstances,  an  outbreak  of  thievery  and  other 
crime,  which  had  to  be  put  down.  It  is  related  that  in 
the  height  of  the  epidemic  hardly  any  one  was  seen  upon 
the  streets  save  an  occasional  nurse,  doctor,  or  other 

532 


WHAT  MEMPHIS  HAS  ENDURED 

member  of  the  relief  committee ;  household  pets  starved 
to  death  or  fled  the  city;  among  the  newspapers  the 
staffs  were  so  reduced  that  only  two  or  three  men  were 
left  in  each  office,  and  in  the  case  of  the  "Appeal,"  but 
one,  that  one  Colonel  J.  M.  Keating,  the  proprietor,  who 
stuck  to  Memphis  and  for  a  time  wrote,  set  up  and 
printed  the  paper  without  assistance,  feeling  that  ref- 
ugees must  have  news  from  the  city. 

The  next  year  the  epidemic  came  again,  but  in  less 
violent  form,  there  being,  this  time,  but  2,000  cases. 
However  the  effect  was  cumulative.  Memphis  dropped 
from  a  city  of  nearly  50,000  to  one  of  20,000  and  the 
reputation  of  the  place  was  such  that  a  bill  was  pro- 
posed in  Congress  to  purchase  the  ground  on  which  the 
city  stood  and  utterly  destroy  it  as  unfit  for  human 
habitation. 

Stricken  as  she  was,  however,  Memphis  "came  back." 
A  great  campaign  for  sanitation  was  begun ;  city  sewage- 
disposal  was  installed,  and  after  a  few  years,  artesian 
wells  were  bored  for  a  new  water  supply.  And  though, 
as  we  now  know,  yellow  fever  does  not  come  from  the 
same  sources  as  typhoid,  nevertheless  the  new  sanitary 
measures  did  greatly  reduce  the  city's  death  rate. 

Memphis,  like  all  other  cities,  has  her  troubles  now 
and  then,  but  since  the  great  pestilence  there  has  never 
been  a  real  disaster.  The  city  has  grown  and  thriven. 
Indeed,  she  had  become  so  used  to  growing  fast  that 
when,  in  1910,  the  Federal  census  gave  her  but  131,000, 
she  indignantly  demanded  a  recount,  for  she  had  been 

533 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

talking  to  herself,  and  had  convinced  herself  that  she  had 
a  great  many  more  than  that  number  of  inhabitants. 
However,  the  census  was  taken  again,  and  the  first  count 
proved  accurate. 


534 


CHAPTER  L 
MODERN  MEMPHIS 

TO  be  charmed  by  the  social  side  of  a  city,  yet  to 
find  little  to  admire  in  its  physical  aspect,  is  like 
knowing  a  brilliant  and  beautiful  woman  whose 
housekeeping  is  not  of  the  neatest.  If  one  were  com- 
pelled to  discuss  such  a  woman,  and  wished  to  do  so  sym- 
pathetically but  with  truth,  one  might  avoid  brutal  com- 
ment on  the  condition  of  her  rooms  by  likening  them  to 
other  rooms  elsewhere:  rooms  which  one  knew  to  be 
untidy,  but  which  the  innocent  listener  might  not  under- 
stand to  be  so.  By  this  device  one  may  even  appear  to 
pay  a  compliment,  while,  in  reality,  indicating  the  grim 
truth.  In  such  a  case,  I,  for  example,  might  say  that 
this  supposititious  lady's  rooms  reminded  me  of  those 
I  occupied  on  the  second  floor  of  the  famous  restaurant 
called  Antoine's,  in  New  Orleans;  whereupon  the 
reader,  knowing  the  high  reputation  of  Antoine's  cui- 
sine, and  never  having  seen  the  apartments  to  which  I 
refer,  might  assume  an  implication  very  favorable. 

Let  me  say,  then,  that  Memphis  reminds  me  of  St. 
Louis.  Like  St.  Louis,  Memphis  has  charming  society. 
Like  St.  Louis  she  has  pretty  girls.  Like  St.  Louis  she 
is  hospitable.     And  without  particularizing  too  much,  I 

535 


AMERICAN  ADV1<:XTUR1£S 

may  say  that  her  streets  remind  me  of  St.  Louis  streets, 
that  many  of  her  houses  remind  me  of  St.  Louis  houses, 
and  that  her  levee,  with  its  cobbled  surface  sloping 
down  to  the  yellow,  muddy  Mississippi,  the  bridges  in 
the  distance,  the  strange  looking  river  steamers  load- 
ing and  unloading  below,  et  cetera,  et  cetera,  et  cetera,  is 
much  like  the  St.  Louis  levee.  So,  if  the  reader  hap- 
pens to  be  unfamiliar  with  the  physical  appearance  of 
St.  Louis,  he  may,  at  all  events,  perceive  that  I  have 
likened  Memphis  to  a  much  larger  city — thus,  (it  seems 
fair  to  suppose)  paying  Memphis  a  handsome  tribute. 

Memphis  has  a  definite  self-given  advantage  over  St. 
Louis  in  possessing  a  pretty  little  park  at  the  heart  of 
the  city,  overlooking  the  river;  also  she  has  the  ad- 
vantage of  lying  to  the  east  of  the  great  stream,  in- 
stead of  to  the  west,  so  that,  in  late  afternoon,  when  the 
sun  splashes  down  into  the  mysterious  deserted  reaches 
of  the  Arkansas  flats,  across  the  way,  sending  splatter- 
ings  of  furious  color  across  the  sky,  one  may  seat  one- 
self on  a  bench  in  the  park  and  witness  a  stupendous 
natural  masterpiece.  A  sunset  over  the  sea  can  be  no 
more  wonderful  than  a  sunset  over  this  terrible,  beau- 
tiful, inspiring,  enigmatic  domineering  flood.  Or  one 
may  see  the  sunset  from  the  readingroom*  of  the  Cos- 
sitt  Library,  with  its  fine  bay  window  commanding  the 
river  almost  as  though  it  w^ere  the  window  of  a  pilot- 
house. 

The  Cossitt  Library  is  only  one  of  several  free  li- 
braries in  the  city.     There  is,  for  example,  a  free  library 

536 


•"V 


Hanging  in  the  air  above  the  middle  of  the  stream 


MODERN  MEMPHIS 

in  connection  with  the  Goodwyn  Institute,  an  estab- 
Hshment  having  an  endowment  of  half  a  milHon  dol- 
lars, left  to  Memphis  by  the  late  William  A.  Goodwyn. 
The  Goodwyn  Institute  provides  courses  of  free  lec- 
tures, by  well-known  persons,  on  a  great  variety  of 
subjects.  The  library  is  designed  to  add  to  the  educa- 
tional work.  Books  are  not,  however,  loaned,  as  they 
are  from  the  Cossitt  Library,  an  institution  to  which  I 
found  myself  returning  more  than  once;  now  for  a 
book,  now  to  look  at  the  interesting  collectjonof  mound- . 
_builder  relics  contained  in  an  upper  room,  now  merely 
because  it  is  a  place  of  such  reposeful  hospitality  that 
I  liked  to  make  excuses  to  go  back. 

The  library,  a  romanesque  building  of  Michigan  red 
sandstone,  is  by  a  southern  architect,  but  is  in  the  style 
of  Richardson,  and  is  one  of  the  few  buildings  in  that 
style  which  I  have  ever  liked.  It  was  given  to  Memphis 
as  a  memorial  to  Frederick  H.  Cossitt,  by  his  three 
daughters,  Mrs.  A.  D.  Juilliard,  Mrs.  Thomas  Stokes, 
and  Mrs.  George  E.  Dodge,  all  of  New  York.  Mr. 
Cossitt  was  born  in  Granby,  Connecticut,  but  as  a  young 
man  moved  South  and  in  1842  adopted  Memphis  as 
his  home,  residing  there  until  1861.  At  the  outbreak 
of  the  Civil  War  he  made  an  amicable  division  of  his 
business  with  his  partner,  and  removed  to  New  York, 
where  he  resided  until  the  time  of  his  death.  Finding 
among  his  papers  a  memorandum  indicating  that  he  had 
intended  to  endow  a  library  in  Memphis,  his  daughters 
carried  out  his  wish. 

537 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Having  already  spoken  of  a  number  of  Memphis^ 
interesting  citizens,  I  find  myself  left  with  an  ill-as- 
sorted trio  of  names  yet  to  be  mentioned,  because,  differ- 
ent as  they  are,  each  of  the  three  supplies  a  definite 
part  of  the  character  of  the  city.  First,  then,  Mem- 
phis has  the  honor  of  possessing  what  not  many  of  our 
cities  possess :  a  man  who  stands  high  among  the  world's 
artist-bookbinders.  This  gentleman  is  Mr.  Otto  Zahn, 
executive  head  of  the  publishing  house  of  S.  C.  Toof  c^- 
Co.  Mr.  Zahn  himself  has  done  some  famous  bind- 
ings, and  books  bound  by  him  are  to  be  found  in  sonic 
of  the  finest  private  libraries  in  the  land.  Until  a  few 
years  he  conducted  an  art-bindery  in  connection  with 
the  Toof  company's  business,  but  it  was  unprofitable 
and  finally  had  to  be  given  up. 

Second,  to  descend  to  a  more  popular  form  of  art. 
but  one  from  which  the  revenue  is  far  more  certain, 
Memphis  has,  in  \\'.  C.  Handy,  a  negro  ragtime  com- 
poser whose  dance  tunes  are  widely  known.  Among 
his  compositions  may  be  mentioned  the  "Memphis 
Blues,"  the  "St.  Louis  Blues,"  "Mr.  Crump,"  and  "Joe 
Turner."  "^Ir.  Crump"  is  named  in  honor  of  a  former 
mayor  of  Memphis  who  was  ousted  for  refusing  to 
enforce  the  prohibition  law;  "Joe  Turner"  is  the  name 
of  a  negro  pianist  who  plays  for  Memphis  to  dance — 
as  Handy  also  does.  Most  of  Handy's  tunes  are  negro 
"rags"  in  fox-trot  time,  and  they  are  so  effective  that 
Memphis  dances  them  generally  in  preference  to  the  one 
step. 

538 


MODERN  MEMPHIS 

My  third  celebrity  is  of  a  more  astounding  type. 
While  in  Memphis  I  called  aboard  the  river  steamer 
Grand,  and  had  a  talk  with  Mrs.  Nettie  Johnson,  who  is 
captain  of  that  craft.  Some  one  told  me  that  Mrs. 
Johnson  was  the  only  woman  steamboat  captain  in  the 
world,  but  she  informed  me  that  at  Helena,  Arkansas, 
there  lives  another  Mrs.  Johnson — no  relative  of  hers — 
who  follows  the  same  calling. 

The  steamer  Grand  is  almost  entirely  a  Johnson  fam- 
ily affair.  Mrs.  Johnson  is  captain;  her  husband,  I.  S. 
Johnson  is  pilot  (though  Mrs.  Johnson  has,  in  addition 
to  her  master's  license,  a  pilot's  license,  and  often  takes 
the  wheel) ;  her  elder  son,  Emery,  is  clerk;  Emery's  wife 
is  assistant  clerk,  while  Arthur,  the  captain's  younger 
son,  is  engineer.  Russell  Johnson,  Mrs.  Johnson's 
grandson,  is  the  only  member  of  the  family  I  saw  aboard 
the  boat  who  does  not  take  part  in  running  it.  Russell 
was  five  years  old  when  I  met  him,  but  that  was  nearly  a 
year  ago,  and  by  now  he  is  probably  chief  steward,  boat- 
swain, or  ship's  carpenter. 

The  regular  route  of  the  Grand  is  from  Alemphis  to 
Mhoon's  Landing,  on  the  Arkansas  River,  a  round  trip 
of  1 20  miles,  with  thirty  landings. 

I  asked  Mrs.  Johnson  if  she  had  ever  been  ship- 
wrecked. Indeed  she  had !  Her  former  ship,  the  Net- 
tie Johnson,  struck  thin  ice  one  night  in  the  Arkansas 
River  and  went  down, 

"What  did  you  do?"  I  asked. 

"I  reached  after  an  iron  ring,"  she  replied,  "and  dumb 

539 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

on  up  into  the  rigging.  She  went  down  about  four- 
thirty  A.  M.  and  we  stayed  on  her  till  daylight;  then 
we  all  swum  ashore.  I  tell  you  it  was  cold!  There 
was  icicles  on  my  dress;  my  son  Emery  put  his  arms 
around  me  to  keep  me  warm,  and  his  clothes  froze  onto 
mine." 

"How  long  a  swim  was  it  to  shore?"  I  asked. 

*'Oh/'  put  in  hei  husband,  "it  did  n't  amount  to  noth- 
ing.    She  was  only  swimming  about  two  minutes." 

This  statement,  however,  was  repudiated  by  the  cap- 
tain. ''Two  minutes,  my  foot !"  she  flung  back  at  her 
spouse.     'Tt  was  more  than  that,  all  right!" 

Mrs.  Johnson  has  done  flood  rescue  work  for  the  Gov- 
ernment, with  the  Grand.  In  the  spring  previous  to 
our  visit  she  rescued  sixty  families  from  one  plantation, 
besides  towing  barge-loads  of  provisions  to  various 
points  on  the  Mississippi  and  Arkansas  rivers. 

Captaining  and  piloting  a  river  boat  are  clearly  go(^d 
for  the  health.  Mrs.  Johnson  looks  too  young  to  be  a 
grandmother.  Her  skin  is  clear,  her  cheeks  are  rosy, 
her  brown  eyes  flash  and  twinkle,  her  voice,  somewhat 
hoarse  from  shouting  commands,  is  deep  and  strong,  and 
her  laugh  is  like  the  hearty  laugh  of  a  big  man. 

"Are  you  a  sufl:'ragist  ?"  I  asked  her. 

"Not  on  your  life!"  was  her  reply. 

"Now,  what  do  you  want  to  talk  like  that  for?"  ob- 
jected her  husband.  "You  know  women  ought  to  be 
allowed  to  vote." 

"I  don't  think  so,"  she  returned  firmly. 

540 


MODERN  MEMPHIS 

At  that  her  daughter-in-law,  the  assistant  clerk  of  the 
Grand,  took  tip  the  cudgels. 

"Of  course  they  ought  to  vote!"  she  insisted.  "You 
know  you  can  do  just  as  good  as  a  man  can  do !" 

''No,"  asseverated  Captain  Nettie.  "Women  ought 
to  stay  home  and  tend  to  their  families." 

"As  you  do?"  I  suggested,  mischievously. 

"That's  all  right !"  she  flung  back.  "I  stayed  home 
and  raised  my  family  until  it  was  big  enough  to  do  its 
own  navigating.  Then  I  started  in  steamboating.  I 
had  to  have  something  to  do." 

But  the  daughter-in-law  did  not  intend  to  let  the 
woman  suffrage  issue  drop. 

''Do  you  mean  to  say,"  she  demanded  of  Captain 
Nettie,  "that  you  think  women  have  n't  got  as  much 
sense  as  men  ?" 

"Sure  I  do!"  the  captain  tossed  back.  "There  never 
was  a  woman  on  earth  that  had  as  much  sense  as  the 
men.  Take  it  from  me,  that 's  so.  I  know  what  I  'm 
talking  about— and  that 's  more  than  a  half  of  these 
other  women  do!" 

Then,  as  it  was  about  time  for  the  Grand  to  cast  off, 
Captain  Nettie  terminated  the  interview  by  blowing  the 
whistle ;  whereupon  my  companion  and  I  went  ashore. 

One  of  the  best  boats  on  the  river  is  the  Kate  Adams 
and  one  of  the  most  delightful  two-days'  outings  T  can 
imagine  would  be  to  make  the  round  trip  with  her  from 
Memphis  to  Arkansas  City.  But  if  I  were  seeking  rest 
I  should  not  take  the  trip  at  the  time  when  it  is  taken 

541 


AMERICAN  ADVENT L'RES 

by  a  score  or  more  of  Memphis  young  men  and  women, 
who,  with  ihcir  chaperones,  and  with  Handy  to  play 
their  dance-music,  make  the  Kate  Adams  an  extremely 
lively  craft  on  one  round  trip  each  year. 

Apropos  of  Arkansas,  I  am  reminded  that  Memphis 
is  not  only  the  metropolis  of  Tennessee,  but  is  the  big 
city  of  Arkansas  and  Mississippi,  as  well.  The  Pea- 
body  Hotel  in  Memphis,  a  somewhat  old-fashioned  hos- 
telry, is  a  sort  of  Arkansas  political  headquarters,  and 
is  sometimes  humorously  referred  to  as  "Pcabody  town- 
ship, Arkansas."  It  is  also  used  to  a  consideral)le  ex- 
tent by  Mississippi  politicians,  as  well  as  by  the  local 
breed.  The  Peabody  grill  has  a  considerable  reputa- 
tion for  good  cookery,  and  the  Peabody  bar,  though  it 
still  looks  like  a  bar,  serves  only  soft  drinks,  which  are 
dispensed  by  female  "bartenders."  The  Gayoso  hotel, 
named  for  the  Spanish  governor  who  intruded  upon 
INIemphis  territory  for  a  time,  stands  where  stood  the 
old  Gayoso,  w^hich  figured  in  Forrest's  raid.  The  Gay- 
oso made  me  think  a  little  of  the  old  Victoria,  in  New 
York,  torn  down  some  years  ago.  The  newest  hotel 
in  town,  at  the  time  of  our  visit,  w^as  the  Chicsa,  an  es- 
tablishment having  a  large  and  rather  flamboyant  office, 
and  considerably  used,  we  were  told,  as  a  place  for  con- 
ventions. If  I  were  to  go  again  to  Memphis  I  should 
have  a  room  at  the  Gayoso  and  go  to  the  Peabody  for 
meals. 

The  axis  of-  the  earth,  which  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 
declared,  "sticks  out  visibly  through  the  center  of  each 

54^ 


MODERN  MEMPHIS 

and  every  town  or  city,"  sticks  out  in  Memphis  at  Court 
Square,  which  the  good  red  Baedeker  dismisses  briefly 
with  the  remark  that  it  "contains  a  bust  of  General  An- 
drew Jackson  and  innumerable  squirrels.  This  is  not 
meant  to  indicate  that  the  squirrels  are  a  part  of  the 
l)ust  of  Jackson.  The  two  are  separate  and  distinct. 
So  are  the  pigeons  which  alight  on  friendly  hands  and 
shoulders  as  do  other  confident  pigeons  on  Boston  Com- 
mon, and  in  the  Piazza  San  Marco,  in  Venice. 

I  am  always  disposed  to  like  the  people  of  a  city  in 
which  pigeons  and  squirrels  are  tame.  Every  day,  at 
noon,  an  old  policeman,  a  former  Confederate  soldier  I 
believe  he  is,  comes  into  the  square  with  a  basket  of  corn. 
When  he  arrives  all  the  pigeons  see  him  and  rush  to- 
ward him  in  a  great  flapping  cloud,  brushing  past  your 
face  if  you  happen  to  be  walking  across  the  square  at 
the  time.  Nor  is  he  the  only  one  to  feed  them.  Num- 
bers of  citizens  go  at  midday  to  the  square,  where  they 
buy  popcorn  and  peanuts  for  the  squirrels  and  pigeons 
— which,  by  the  way,  are  all  members  of  old  Memphis 
families,  being  descendants  of  other  squirrels  and  pig- 
eons which  lived  in  this  same  place  before  the  Civil  War. 
One  might  suppose  that  the  pigeons,  being  able  to  fly  up 
to  the  seventeenth  floor  windowsills  of  the  Merchants' 
Exchange  Building,  where  men  of  the  grain  and  hay 
bureau  of  the  exchange  are  in  the  habit  of  leaving  corn 
for  them,  would  prosper  more  than  the  squirrels,  but 
that  is  not  the  case  for — and  I  regret  to  have  to  report 
such  immorality — the  squirrels  are  in  the  habit  of  add- 

543 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

ing  to  the  stores  of  peanuts  which  are  thrown  to  them, 
by  thievery.  Like  rascally  urchins  they  will  watch  the 
peanut  venders,  and  when  their  backs  are  turned,  will 
make  swift  dashes  at  the  peanut  stands,  seizing  nuts 
and  scampering  away  again.  Sometimes  the  venders 
detect  them,  and  give  chase  for  a  few  steps,  but  that  is 
dangerous,  for  the  minute  the  vender  goes  after  one 
squirrel,  others  rush  up  and  steal  more.  It  is  saddening 
to  find  that  even  squirrels  are  corrupted  bv  metropolitan 
life! 

In  reviewing  my  visit  to  ^Memphis  I  find  myself,  for 
once,  kind)}'  disposed  toward  a  Chamber  of  Commerce 
and  Business  Men's  Club.  I  like  the  Business  Glen's 
Club  because,  besides  issuing  pamphlets  shrieking  the 
glory  of  the  city,  it  has  found  time  to  do  things  much 
more  worth  while — notably  to  bring  to  Memphis  some  of 
the  great  American  orchestras. 

A  pamphlet  issued  by  these  organizations  tells  me  that 
Memphis  is  the  largest  cotton  market  in  the  country,  the 
largest  hardwood  producing  market,  the  third  largest 
grocery  and  jobbing  market. 

Cotton  is,  indeed,  much  in  evidence  in  the  city.  The 
streets  in  some  sections  are  full  of  strange  little  two- 
wheel  drays,  upon  which  three  bales  are  carried,  and 
wdiich  display,  in  combination,  those  three  southern 
things  having  such  perfect  artistic  affinity:  the  negro, 
the  mule,  and  the  cotton  bale.  The  vast  modern  cotton 
warehouses  on  the  outskirts  of  the  city  cover  many  acres 
of  ground,  and  with  their  gravity  system  of  distribution 

544 


MODERN  MEMPHIS 

for  cotton  bales,  and  their  hydraulic  compresses  in  which 
the  bales  are  squeezed  to  minimum  size,  to  the  accom- 
paniment of  negro  chants,  are  exceedingly  interesting. 

The  same  pamphlet  speaks  also  of  the  unusually  large 
proportion  of  the  city's  area  which  is  given  over 
to  parks  and  playgrounds,  and  it  seems  worth  adding 
that  though  Memphis  follows  the  general  southern  cus- 
tom of  barring  negroes — excepting,  of  course,  nurse- 
maids in  charge  of  children — from  her  parks,  she  has 
been  so  just  as  to  provide  a  park  for  negroes  only.  In 
this  she  stands  ahead  of  most  other  southern  cities. 

Memphis  has  the  only  bridge  crossing  the  Mississippi 
below  the  mouth  of  the  Ohio.  At  the  time  of  our  visit  a 
new  bridge  was  being  built  very  near  the  old  one,  and  an 
interesting  experience  of  our  trip  was  our  visit  to  this 
bridge,  under  the  guidance  of  Mr.  M.  B.  Case,  a  young 
engineer  in  charge. 

On  a  great  undertaking,  such  as  this  one,  where  the 
total  cost  mounts  into  millions,  the  first  work  done  is  not 
on  the  proposed  bridge  itself,  but  on  the  plant  and  equip- 
ment to  be  used  in  construction — derricks,  barges,  con- 
crete-mixers, air  compressors  for  the  caissons,  small 
engines,  dump-cars  and  all  manner  of  like  things.  This 
preparatory  work  consumes  some  months.  Caissons  are 
then  sunk  far  down  beneath  the  river  bed.  Caisson 
work  is  dangerous,  and  the  insurance  rate  on  "sand 
hogs" — the  men  who  work  in  the  caissons — is  very  high. 
The  scale  of  wages,  and  of  time,  varies  in  proportion  to 
the  risk,  which  is  according  to  the  depth  at  which  work  is 

545 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

being  done.  On  this  enterprise,  for  example,  men  work- 
ing from  mean  level  to  a  depth  of  50  feet  received  $3  for 
an  eight-hour  day.  From  50  to  70  feet  ihcy  worked  but 
six  hours  and  received  $3.75.  From  90  to  105  feet  they 
worked  in  three  shifts  of  one  hour  each,  and  received 
$4.25.  And  while  they  were  placing  concrete  to  seal  the 
working  chamber  there  was  an  additional  allowance  of 
fifty  cents  a  day. 

The  chief  danger  of  caisson  work  is  the  "bends,"  or 
"caisson  disease."  In  the  caisson  a  man  works  under 
high  air  pressure.  When  he  comes  out,  the  pressure  on 
the  fluids  of  the  body  is  reduced,  and  this  sometimes 
causes  the  formation  of  a  gas  bubble  in  the  vascular 
system.  If  this  bubble  reaches  a  nerve-center  it  causes 
severe  pain,  similar  to  neuralgia;  if  it  gets  to  the  brain 
it  causes  paralysis.  Day  after  day  men  will  go  into  the 
caisson  and  come  out  without  trouble,  but  sooner  or  later 
from  2  to  8  per  cent,  of  caisson  workers  are  afl"ected. 
Of  320  "sand-hogs"  who  labored  in  the  caissons  of  this 
bridge,  three  died  of  paralysis,  and  of  course  a  number 
of  others  had  slight  attacks  of  the  *'bends,"  in  one  form 
or  another. 

The  bridge,  when  we  visited  it,  was  more  than  half 
completed.  On  the  Memphis  side  the  approaches  were 
almost  ready,  and  the  steel  framework  of  the  bridge 
reached  from  the  shore  across  the  front  pier,  and  was 
being  built  out  far  beyond  the  pier,  on  the  cantilever 
principle,  hanging  in  the  air  above  the  middle  of  the 
stream.     By  walking  out  on  the  old  bridge  we  could  sur- 

546 


MODERN  MEMPHIS 

vey  the  extreme  end  of  the  new  one,  which  was  being- 
extended  farther  and  farther,  daily,  by  the  addition  of 
new  steel  sections.  There  were  then  about  loo  journey- 
men bridgemen  on  the  work — these  being  workmen  of 
the  class  that  erects  steel  skyscraper  frames — with  some 
fifty  apprentices  and  carpenters,  and  about  twenty  com- 
mon laborers.  Bridgemen  are  among  the  highest  paid 
of  all  workmen.  In  New  York,  at  that  time,  their  wage 
was  $6  for  eight  hours'  work.  Here  it  was  $4.50. 
Very  few  of  the  men  had  families  wdth  them  in  Mem- 
phis. They  are  the  soldiers  of  fortune  among  wage- 
earners,  a  wild,  reckless,  fine  looking  lot  of  fellows,  with 
good  complexions  like  those  of  men  in  training,  and  eyes 
like  the  eyes  of  aviators.  No  class  of  men  in  the  world, 
I  suppose,  have  steadier  nerves,  think  quicker,  or  react 
more  rapidly  from  stimulus  to  action,  whether  through 
sight  or  sound.  They  have  to  be  like  that.  For  where 
other  workmen  pay  for  a  mistake  by  loss  of  a  job,  these 
men  pay  with  life.  Yet  they  will  tell  you  that  their 
work  is  not  dangerous.  It  is  "just  as  safe  as  any  other 
kind  of  job" — that,  although  four  of  their  number  had 
already  been  lost  from  this  bridge  alone.  One  went  off 
the  end  of  the  structure  with  a  derrick,  the  boom  of 
which  he  lowered  before  the  anchor-bolts  had  been 
placed.  Two  others  fell.  A  fourth  was  struck  by  a 
falling  timber. 

Once,  while  we  were  watching  the  men  scrambling 
about  upon  the  steel  members  of  the  uncompleted  canti- 
lever arm,  one  of  them  thought  something  was  about  to 

547 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

fall,  and  ran  swiftly  in,  over  a  steel  beam,  toward  the 
body  of  the  structure;  whereafter,  as  nothing  did  fall, 
he  was  unmercifully  twitted  by  his  fellow  workers  for 
having  shown  timidity, 

Alanv  of  the  men  workinjj  on  this  brid^^'e  had  worked 
on  the  older  structure  paralleling  it.  This  was  true  not 
only  of  the  laljoring  men,  but  of  the  engineers.  Ralph 
Modjeski,  the  consulting  engineer  at  the  head  of  the 
work  (he  is.  by  the  way,  a  son  of  Madame  Modjeska), 
was  chief  draughtsman  when  the  earlier  structure  was 
designed;  W.  E.  Angier,  assistant  chief  engineer  in  the 
present  work,  was  a  field  engineer  on  the  first  bridge,  and 
it  is  interesting  to  know  that,  in  constructing  the  ap- 
proach to  the  old  bridge  he  unearthed  a  Spanish  halbert 
which,  it  is  thought,  may  date  from  the  time  of  De  Soto. 
These  bridge  engineers  and  bridgebuilders  move  in  a 
large  orbit.  Their  last  job  may  have  been  in  Mexico,  in 
the  far  West,  or  in  India ;  their  next  may  be  in  France. 
Many  of  the  men  here,  worked  on  the  Rlackwell's  Island 
bridge,  on  the  Ouel)ec  bridge  (which  fell),  on  the 
Thebes  bridge  over  the  Mississippi,  twenty  miles  above 
Cairo,  on  the  Vancouver  and  Portland  bridges  over  the 
Columbia  and  Willamette  rivers,  and  on  the  great  Ore- 
gon ^J^runk  Railway  bridges. 

After  standing  for  a  time  on  the  old  bridge  watching 
work  cm  the  new,  and  shuddering,  often  enough,  at  the 
squirrel-like  way  in  which  the  men  scampered  about  up 
there,  so  far  above  the  water,  we  walked  in  and  moved 
out  again  upon  the  partially  completed  floor  of  the  new 

548 


MODERN  MEMPHIS 

bridge.  Here  it  was  necessary  to  walk  on  railroad  ties, 
with  gaps,  six  or  eight  inches  wide,  between  them. 
Even  had  one  tried,  one  could  hardly  have  managed  to 
squeeze  one's  body  through  these  chinks ;  to  fall  through 
was  impossible;  nevertheless  it  gave  me  an  uncomfort- 
able feeling  in  the  region  of  the  stomach  to  walk  out 
there,  seeing  the  river  all  the  time  between  the  inter- 
stices. When  we  had  progressed  for  some  distance  we 
came  to  a  gap  where,  for  perhaps  a  yard,  there  were  no 
ties — just  open  space,  with  the  muddy  water  shining 
cold  and  cruel  below.  The  opening  was  only  about  as 
wide  as  the  hall  of  a  small  New  York  flat,  and  heaven 
knows  that  to  step  across  such  a  hall  is  easy  enough. 
But  this  was  not  so  easy.  When  we  came  to  the  gap  I 
stopped.  Mr.  Case,  the  young  engineer,  who  loved  all 
bridges  with  a  sort  of  holy  passion,  and  loved  this  bridge 
in  particular,  was  talking  as  we  went  along.  I  liked  to 
hear  him  talk.  He  had  been  telling  us  how  a  thing  that 
is  to  be  strong  ought  to  look  strong,  too,  and  from  that 
had  got  somehow  to  the  topic  of  expansion  and  contrac- 
tion in  bridges,  with  variations  of  temperature.  *Tt 
is  n't  only  the  steel  bridges  that  do  it,"  he  said.  ''Stone 
arch  bridges  do  it,  too.  The  crown  of  the  arch  rises  and 
falls.  The  Greeks  and  Romans  and  Egyptians  knew 
that  expansion  and  contraction  occurred.     They — " 

While  talking  he  had  gone  across  the  gap,  stepping 
lightly  upon  a  stringpiece  probably  a  foot  wide,  and  pro- 
ceeding over  the  ties.  Now,  however,  he  ceased  speak- 
ing and  looked  back,  for  I  was  no  longer  beside  him. 

549 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

At  the  gap  I  had  stopped.  I  intended  to  step  across,  but 
I  did  not  propose  to  do  so  without  giving  the  matter  the 
attention  it  seemed  to  me  to  deserve. 

Mr.  Case  did  not  laugh  at  me.  He  came  back  and 
stood  on  the  string-piece  where  it  crossed  the  opening, 
telHng  me  to  put  my  hand  on  his  shoulder.  But  I  did 
not  want  to  do  that.  I  wanted  to  cross  alone — when  I 
got  ready.  It  took  me  perhaps  two  minutes  to  get  ready. 
Then  I  stepped  over.  It  was,  of  course,  absurdly  easy. 
I  had  known  it  would  be.  V>u{  as  we  walked  along  T 
kept  thinking  to  myself:  'T  shall  have  to  cross  that 
beastly  place  again  when  we  come  back,"  and  I  marveled 
the  more  at  the  amazing  steadiness  of  eye  and  mind  and 
nerve  that  enables  some  men  to  go  continually  prancing 
about  over  emptiness  infinitely  more  engulfing  than  that 
which  had  troubled  and  was  troubling  me. 

Returning  I  stepped  across  without  physical  hesita- 
tion. But  after  I  had  crossed  I  continued  to  hate  that 
gap.  I  hated  it  as  I  drove  back  to  the  hotel,  that  after- 
noon, as  T  ate  dinner  that  night,  as  I  went  to  bed,  and  in 
my  dreams  I  continued  to  cross  it,  and  to  see  the  river 
waiting  for  me,  seeming  to  look  up  and  leer  and  beckon. 
I  woke  up  hating  the  gap  in  the  bridge  as  much  as  ever ; 
I  hated  it  down  into  the  State  of  Mississippi,  and  over 
into  Georgia;  and  wherever  I  have  gone  since.  I  have 
continued  to  hate  it.  Of  course  there  is  n't  any  gap  there 
now.  It  was  covered  long  ago.  Yet  for  me  it  still  ex- 
ists, like  some  obnoxious  person  who,  though  actually 
dead,  lives  on  in  the  minds  of  those  who  knew  him. 

550 


FARTHEST  SOUTH 


CHAPTER  LI 
BEAUTIFUL  SAVANNAH 

HOW  often  it  occurs  that  the  great  work  a  man  set 
out  originally  to  accomplish,  is  lost  sight  of,  by 
future  generations,  in  contemplation  of  other 
achievements  of  that  man,  which  he  himself  regarded 
as  of  secondary  importance. 

In  1/33,  the  year  in  which  General  Oglethorpe  started 
his  Georgia  colony,  there  were  more  than  a  hundred  of- 
fenses for  which  a  person  might  be  hanged  in  Eng- 
land; Oglethorpe's  primary  idea  in  founding  the  colony 
was  to  provide  a  means  of  freeing  debtors  from  prison, 
and  giving  them  a  fresh  start  in  life ;  yet  it  is  as  the  man 
responsible  for  the  laying  out  of  the  beautiful  city  of 
Savannah,  that  Oglethorpe  is  probably  most  widely  re- 
membered to-day. 

Oglethorpe  v/as  a  first-rate  soldier.  He  defeated  a 
superior  Spanish  force  from  Florida,  and  successfully 
resisted  attacks  from  the  Indians.  Also,  he  was  a  man 
whose  ethical  sense  was  in  advance  of  his  period.  He 
did  not  permit  slavery  in  Georgia,  and  it  was  not  adopted 
there  until  he  went  back  to  England.  In  planning 
Savannah  he  was  assisted  by  a  Charleston  engineer 
named  Bull,  for  whom  the  chief  street  of  Savannah  is 

553 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

named.  The  place  is  laid  out  very  simply;  it  has  rect- 
angular blocks  and  wide  roads,  with  small  parks,  or 
sc[uares,  at  regular  intervals.  There  are  some  two 
dozen  of  these  small  parks,  aside  from  one  or  two  larger 
parks,  a  parade  ground,  and  numerous  boulevards  with 
double  roadways  and  parked  centers,  and  the  abundance 
of  semi-tropical  foliage  and  of  airy  spaces,  in  Savannah, 
gives  the  city  its  most  distinctive  and  charming  quality 
— the  quality  which  differentiates  it  from  all  other 
American  cities.  Originally  these  parks  were  used  as 
market-places  and  rallying  points  in  case  of  Indian  at- 
tack; now  they  serve  the  equally  utilitarian  purposes  of 
this  age,  having  become  charming  public  gardens  and 
playgrounds.  One  of  them — not  the  most  important 
one — is  named  Oglethorpe  Square;  but  the  monument 
to  Oglethorpe  is  placed  elsewhere. 

]\iadison  Square,  Savannah,  is  relatively  about  as 
important  as  Madison  Square,  New  York,  and  though 
smaller  than  the  latter,  is  much  prettier.  It  contains 
a  monument  to  Sergeant  Jasper,  the  Revolutionary  hero 
w^ho,  when  the  flag  w^as  shot  down  from  Fort  Moultrie, 
off  Charleston,  by  the  British,  flung  it  to  the  breeze 
again,  under  fire.  Jasper  was  later  killed  with  the  flag 
in  his  arms,  in  the  French-American  attempt  to  take 
Savannah  from  the  British.  Monterey  Square  has  a 
statue  of  Count  Pulaski,  who  also  fell  at  the  siege  of 
Savannah.  Another  Revolutionary  hero  remembered 
with  a  monument  is  General  Nathanael  Greene  who, 
though  born  in  Rhode  Island,  moved  after  the  war  to 

554 


BEAUTIFUL  SAVANNAH 

Georgia  where,  in  recognition  of  his  services,  he  was 
given  an  estate  not  far  from  Savannah.  ''Mad'* 
Anthony  Wayne,  a  Pennsylvanian  by  birth,  also  ac- 
cepted an  estate  in  Georgia  and  resided  there  after  the 
Revolution. 

An  interesting  story  attaches  to  Greene's  settlement 
in  Georgia.  The  estate  given  to  him  was  that  known 
as  Mulberry  Grove,  above  the  city,  on  the  Savannah 
River.  The  property  had  previously  belonged  to  Lieu- 
tenant-governor John  Graham,  but  was  confiscated  be- 
cause Graham  was  a  loyalist.  Along  with  the  property, 
Greene  apparently  took  over  the  Graham  vault  in  Colo- 
nial Cemetery — now  a  city  park,  and  a  very  interesting 
one  because  of  the  old  tombs  and  gravestones — and  there 
he  was  himself  buried.  After  a  while  people  forgot 
where  Greene's  remains  lay,  and  later,  when  it  was 
decided  to  erect  a  monument  to  his  memory  in  Johnson 
Square,  they  could  n't  find  any  Greene  to  put  under  it. 
However,  they  went  ahead  and  made  the  monument, 
and  Lafayette  laid  the  cornerstone,  when  he  visited 
Savannah  in  March,  1825.  Greene's  remains  were  lost 
for  114  years.  They  did  not  come  to  light  until  1902, 
when  some  one  thought  of  opening  the  Graham  vault. 
Thereupon  they  were  removed  and  reinterred  in  their 
proper  resting  place  beneath  the  monument  which  had  so 
long  awaited  them.  That  monument,  by  the  way.  was 
not  erected  by  Savannah  people,  or  even  by  Southerners, 
but  was  paid  for  by  the  legislature  of  the  general's  na- 
tive Rhode  Island.     When  the  remains  were  discovered, 

555 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Rhode  Island  asked  for  them,  but  Savannah,  which  had 
lost  them,  also  wanted  iheni.  'I'he  matter  was  settled  by 
a  vote  of  Greene's  known  descendants,  who  decided  al- 
most unanimously  to  leave  his  remains  in  Savannah. 

The  foundation  of  the  general's  former  home  at  Mul- 
berry Grove  may  still  be  seen.  It  was  in  this  house  that 
Eli  Whitney  invented  the  cotton-gin.  Whitney  was  a 
tutor  in  the  Greene  family  after  the  general's  death, 
and  it  was  at  the  suggestion  of  Mrs.  Greene  that  he 
started  to  try  and  make  "a  machine  to  pick  the  seed  out 
of  cotton."  It  is  said  that  Whitney's  first  machine 
would  do,  in  five  hours,  work  which,  if  done  by  hand, 
would  take  one  man  two  years.  This  was,  of  course,  an 
epoch-making  invention  and  caused  enormous  commer- 
cial growth  in  the  South,  where  cotton-gins  are  as  com- 
mon things  as  restaurants  in  the  city  of  New  York. 
\\'hich  reminds  me  of  a  story. 

A  northern  man  was  visiting  Air.  W.  D.  Pender,  at 
Tarboro,  North  Carolina.  On  the  day  of  the  guest's 
arrival  Mr.  Pender  spoke  to  his  cook,  a  negro  woman  of 
the  old  order,  telling  her  to  hurry  up  the  dinner,  because 
he  wished  to  take  his  friend  down  to  see  the  cotton-gin. 
''You  know,"  he  explained,  "this  gentleman  has  never 
seen  a  cotton-gin." 

The  cook  looked  at  him  in  amazement. 

''Lor'!  Mistuh  Penduh,"  she  exclaimed.  ''An'  dat 
man  look  like  he  was  edjacated!" 

Another  item  in  Savannah  history  is  that  John  Wes- 

556 


'    <-,  L 


BEAUTIFUL  SAVANNAH 

ley  came  over  about  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury to  convert  the  Indians  to  Christianity.  It  was 
not  until  after  this  attempt,  when  he  returned  to 
England,  that  he  began  the  great  religious  movement 
which  led  to  the  founding  of  the  Methodist  Church. 
George  Whitfield  also  preached  in  Savannah.  Evi- 
dently Wesley  did  not  get  very  far  with  the  savages 
who,  it  may  be  imagined,  were  more  responsive  to  the 
kind  of  "conversion"  attempted  in  South  Carolina,  by  a 
French  dancing-master,  who  went  out  from  Charleston 
in  the  early  days  and  taught  them  the  steps  of  the  stately 
minuet. 

Another  great  event  in  Savannah  history  was  the  de- 
parture from  that  port,  in  1819,  of  the  City  of  Savannah, 
the  first  steamship  to  cross  the  Atlantic.  If  I  may 
make  a  suggestion  to  the  city,  it  is  that  the  centennial 
of  this  event  be  celebrated,  and  that  a  memorial  be 
erected.  Inspiration  for  such  a  memorial  might  "per- 
haps be  found  in  the  simple  and  charming  monument, 
crowned  by  a  galleon  in  bronze,  which  has  been  erected 
in  San  Francisco,  in  memory  of  Robert  Louis  Steven- 
son. A  ship  in  bronze  can  be  a  glorious  thing — which 
is  more  than  can  be  said  of  a  bronze  statesman  in  modern 
pantaloons. 

More  lately  Savannah  initiated  another  world-im- 
provement: she  was  the  first  city  to  abolish  horses  en- 
tirely from  her  fire  department,  replacing  them  with 
automobile  engines,  hook-and-ladders,  and  hose-carts. 

557 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

That  is  in  line  with  what  one  would  expect  of  Savannah, 
for  she  is  not  only  a  progressive  city,  but  is  a  great 
automobile  city,  having  several  times  been  the  scene  of 
important  international  automobile  road  races,  including 
the  Grand  Prize  and  the  \'anderbilt  Cup. 

Nor  is  there  want  of  other  history.  The  Savannah 
Theater,  though  gutted  by  fire  and  rebuilt,  is  the  same 
theater  that  Joseph  Jefferson  owned  and  managed  for 
a  time,  in  the  fifties;  in  the  house  on  Lafayette  Square, 
now  occupied  by  Judge  \\\  W.  Lambdin,  Robert  E.  Lee 
once  stayed,  and  Thackeray  is  said  to  have  written  there 
a  part  of  "The  Virginians." 

A  sad  thing  was  happening  in  Savannah  when  we 
were  there.  The  Habersham  house,  one  of  the  loveliest 
old  mansions  of  the  city,  was  being  torn  down  to  make 
room  for  a  municipal  auditorium. 

The  first  Habersham  in  America  was  a  Royal  Gov- 
ernor of  Georgia.  Lie  had  three  sons  one  of  whom, 
Joseph,  had,  by  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution,  become  a 
good  enough  American  to  join  a  band  of  young  patriots 
who  took  prisoner  the  British  governor,  Sir  James 
Wright.  The  governor's  house  was  situated  where  the 
Telfair  Academy  now  is.  He  was  placed  under  parole, 
but  nevertheless  fled  to  Bonaventure,  the  Tabnall  estate, 
not  far  from  the  city,  where  he  was  protected  by  friends 
until  he  could  escape  to  the  British  fleet,  which  then  la}- 
ofif  Tybee  Island  at  the  mouth  of  the  Savannah  River, 
some  eighteen  miles  below  the  city.  This  same  Joseph 
Habersham,  it  is  said,  led  a  party  w^hich  w^ent  out  in 

558 


BEAUTIFUL  SAVANNAH 

1775  in  skiffs — called  bateaux  along  this  part  of  the 
coast — boarded  the  British  ship  Hinchenhroke ,  lying  at 
anchor  in  the  river,  and  captured  her  in  a  hand-to-hand 
conflict.  Mr.  Neyle  Colquitt  of  Savannah,  a  descendant 
of  the  Habershams,  tells  me  that  the  powder  taken  from 
the  Hinchenhroke  was  used  at  the  Battle  of  Bunker  Hill. 
After  the  war,  in  which  Joseph  Habersham  commanded 
a  regiment  of  regulars,  he  was  made  Postmaster  General 
of  the  United  States.  The  old  house  itself  was  built  by 
Archibald  Bulloch,  a  progenitor  of  that  Miss  "Mittie" 
Bulloch  who  later  became  Mrs.  Theodore  Roosevelt,  Sr., 
mother  of  the  President.  It  was  designed  by  an  Eng- 
lish architect  named  Jay,  who  did  a  number  of  the  fine 
old  houses  of  Savannah,  which  are  almost  without  excep- 
tion of  the  Georgian  period.  Archibald  Bulloch  bought 
the  lot  on  which  he  built  the  house  from  Matthew 
McAllister,  great-grandfather  of  Ward  McAllister. 
When  sold  by  Bulloch  it  passed  through  several  hands 
and  finally  came  into  the  possession  of  Robert  Haber- 
sham, a  son  of  Joseph. 

The  old  house  was  spacious  and  its  interiors  had  a 
fine  formality  about  them.  The  staircase,  fireplace  and 
chandeliers  were  handsome,  and  there  was  at  the  rear 
a  charming  oval  room,  the  heavy  mahogany  doors  of 
which  were  curved  to  conform  to  the  shape  of  the  walls. 
To  tear  down  such  a  house  was  sacrilege — also  it  was  a 
sacrilege  hard  to  commit,  for  some  of  the  basement  walls 
were  fifteen  feet  thick,  and  of  solid  brick  straight 
through. 

559 


AMERICAN  ADVI':XTURES 

Sherman's  head(iuarters  were  on  the  Square,  just 
south  of  the  De  Soto  Hotel,  in  the  battlemented  brick 
mansion  which  is  the  residence  of  General  I'eter  W. 
Meldrim,  ex-president  of  the  American  Bar  Associa- 
tion, and  former  Mayor  of  Savannah. 

Among  other  old  houses  characteristic  of  Savannah, 
are  the  Scarborough  house,  the  Mackay  house,  the 
Thomas  house  in  Franklin  S(|uare  (also  known  as 
the  Owens  house),  in  which  Lafayette  was  enter- 
tained, and  the  Telfair  house,  now  the  Telfair  Academy. 
The  Telfair  and  Thomas  houses  were  built  by  the  archi- 
tect who  built  the  Habersham  house,  and  it  is  to  be 
hoped  that  they  will  never  go  the  way  of  the  latter 
mansion. 

In  1810,  about  the  time  these  houses  were  built. 
Savannah  had  5,000  inhabitants;  by  1850  the  popula- 
tion had  trebled,  and  1890  found  "it  a  place  of  more 
than  40,000.  Since  then  the  city  has  grown  with 
wholesome  rapidity,  and  attractive  suburban  districts 
have  been  developed.  The  19 10  census  gives  the  popula- 
tion as  65,000,  but  the  city  talks  exuberantly  of  90,000. 
Well,  perhaps  that  is  not  an  exaggerated  claim.  Cer- 
tainly it  is  a  city  to  attract  those  who  are  free  to  live 
where  they  please.  In  fall,  winter  and  spring  it  leaves 
little  to  be  desired.  I  have  been  there  three  times,  and  I 
have  never  walked  up  Bull  Street  without  looking  for- 
ward to  the  day  when  I  could  go  there,  rent  an  old  house 
full  of  beautiful  mahogany,  and  pass  a  winter.  Not 
even  New  Orleans  made  me  feel  like  that.     I  feel  about 

560 


\%^ 


-^l-^\:..^.^C/ 


BEAUTIFUL  SAVANNAH 

New  Orleans  that  it  is  a  place  to  visit  rather  than  to 
settle  down  in.  I  want  to  go  back  to  New  Orleans,  but 
I  do  not  want  to  stay  more  than  a  few  weeks.  I  want 
to  see  some  people  that  I  know,  prowl  about  the  French 
quarter,  and  have  Jules  Alciatore  turn  me  out  a  dinner ; 
then  I  want  to  go  away.  So,  too,  I  want  to  go  back  to 
Atlanta — just  to  see  some  people.  I  want  to  stay  there 
a  week  or  two.  Also  I  want  to  go  to  St.  Augustine 
when  cold  weather  comes,  and  bask  in  the  warm  sun,  and 
breathe  the  soft  air  full  of  gold  dust,  and  feel  indolent 
and  happy  as  I  watch  the  activities  about  the  excellent 
Ponce  de  Leon  Hotel;  but  there  are  two  cities  in  the 
South  that  I  dream  of  going  to  for  a  quiet  happy  winter 
of  domesticity  and  work,  in  a  rented  house — it  must  be 
the  right  house,  too — and  those  cities  are,  first  Charles- 
ton; then  Savannah. 

The  Telfair  Academy  in  the  old  Telfair  mansion  was 
left,  by  a  member  of  the  family,  to  the  city,  to  be  used 
as  a  museum.  Being  somewhat  skeptical  about  mu- 
seums in  cities  of  the  size  of  Savannah,  not  to  say 
much  larger  cities,  especially  when  they  are  art  museums, 
I  very  nearly  omitted  a  visit  to  this  one.  Had  I  done 
so  I  would  have  missed  seeing  not  only  a  number  of  ex- 
ceedingly interesting  historic  treasures,  but  what  I  be- 
lieve to  be  the  best  public  art  collection  contained  in  any 
southern  city. 

The  museum  does,  to  be  sure,  contain  a  number  of 
old  "tight"  paintings  of  the  kind  with  which  the  coun- 
try was  deluged  at  the  time  of  the  Chicago  World's  Fair, 

561 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

but  upstairs  there  is  a  surprise  in  shape  of  an  exhibition 
of  modern  American  paintings  (the  best  paintings  be- 
ing produced  in  the  world  to-day)  showing  brilliant 
selection.  I  was  utterly  amazed  when  I  found  this  col- 
lection. There  were  excellent  canvases  by  Childe  Has- 
sam,  Ernest  Lawson,  George  Bellows,  and  other  H\ing 
American  painters  whose  work,  while  it  is  becoming 
more  and  more  widely  appreciated  each  year,  is  still 
beyond  all  but  the  most  advanced  and  discriminating 
buyers  of  paintings.  I  went  into  ecstasies  over  this  col- 
lection, and  I  "Said  to  myself:  *' Away  down  here  in  Sa- 
vannah there  is  some  one  buying  better  paintings  for  a 
little  museum  than  the  heads  of  many  of  the  big 
museums  in  the  country  have  had  sense  enough  or 
courage  enough  to  buy.  This  man  ought  to  be  'dis- 
covered' and  taken  to  some  big  museum  where  his  ap- 
preciation will  be  put  to  the  greatest  use."  With  that  T 
rushed  downstairs,  sought  out  the  curator,  and  asked 
who  had  purchased  the  modern  American  pictures. 
And  then  my  bubble  was  pricked,  for  who  had  they  had, 
down  there,  buying  their  pictures  for  them,  but  Gari 
Alelchers !     Naturally  the  pictures  were  good ! 

In  one  room  of  the  building,  on  the  ground  floor,  is 
a  collection  of  fine  old  furniture,  etc.,  which  belonged 
to  the  Telfair  family,  including  two  beautiful  mantel- 
pieces of  Iplack  and  white  marble,  some  cabinets,  and  a 
very  curious  and  fascinating  extension  dining-table, 
built  of  mahogany:  The  table  is  perfectly  round,  and 
the  leaves,  instead  of  being  added  in  the  middle,  are 

562 


BEAUTIFUL  SAVANNAH 

curved  pieces,  fitting  around  the  outer  edge  in  two  se- 
ries, so  that  when  extended  to  its  full  capacity  the 
table  is  still  round.  I  have  never  seen  another  such 
table. 

Also  I  found  many  interesting  old  books  and  papers 
passed  down  from  the  Telfairs.  One  of  these  was  a 
ledger  with  records  of  slave  sales. 

In  a  sale  held  Friday,  October  14,  1774,  Sir  James 
Wright,  the  same  British  governor  who  was  presently 
put  to  flight,  purchased  four  men,  five  women,  nine  boys, 
and  one  girl,  at  a  total  cost  of  £820,  or  about  $3,280. 
Sir  Patrick  Houston  bought  two  women  at  £90,  or  $450. 
The  whole  day's  sale  disposed  of  thirty-five  men,  seven- 
teen women,  twenty-seven  boys  and  ten  girls,  at  a  grand 
total  of  £3206,  or  roughly  between  nine  and  ten  thou- 
sand dollars. 

The  Telfairs  were  great  planters.  Among  the  papers 
was  one  headed  "Rules  and  Directions  to  be  strictly  at- 
tended to  by  all  overseers  at  Thorn  Island  Plantation." 
This  plantation  was  on  the  North  Carolina  side  of  the 
river,  and  was  owned  by  Alexander  Telfair,  a  brother 
of  Miss  Mary  Telfair  who  gave  the  Academy  to  the  city. 
Dates  which  occur  in  the  papers  stamp  them  as  having 
been  issued  some  time  prior  to  1837.  Here  are  some  of 
the  regulations : 

The  allowance  for  every  grown  negro,  let  him  or  her 
be  old  and  good  for  nothing,  and  every  young  one  that 
works  in  the  field,  is  a  peck  of  corn  a  week  and  a  pint  of 

563 


AMERICAN  ADVEXTUKliS 

salt  and  a  piece  of  meat  not  exceeding  fourteen  pounds 
per  month. 

Xo  negro  to  have  more  than  f(^rly  lashes,  no  matter 
what  his  crime. 

The  suckling  children  and  all  small  ones  who  do  not 
work  in  the  field  draw  a  half  allowance  of  corn  and  sail. 

Any  negro  can  have  a  ticket  to  go  about  the  neighbor- 
hood, but  cannot  leave  it  wdthout  a  pass.  Xo  strangers 
allowed  to  come  on  the  place  without  a  pass. 

The  negroes  to  be  tasked  when  the  work  allows  it.  I 
require  a  reasonable  day's  work  well  done.  The  task  to 
be  regulated  by  the  state  of  the  ground  and  the  strength 
of  the  negro. 

All  visiting  between  the  Georgia  plantation  to  be  re- 
fused. [The  Telfairs  owned  another  plantation  on  the 
Georgia  side  of  the  river.]  Xo  one  to  get  husbands  or 
wives  across  the  river.  X'o  night  meeting  or  preaching 
allowed  on  the  place  except  on  Saturday  or  Sunday 
morning. 

If  there  is  any  fighting  on  the  place  whip  all  engaged 
in  it,  no  matter  what  may  be  the  cause  it  may  be  covered 
with. 

In  extreme  cases  of  sickness  employ  a  physician. 
After  a  dose  of  castor  oil  is  given,  a  dose  of  calomel,  and 
blister  applied,  if  no  relief,  then  send. 

My  negroes  are  not  allowed  to  plant  cotton  for  them- 
selves. Everything  else  they  may  plant.  Give  them 
ticket  to  sell  what  they  make. 

I  have  no  Driver  (slave-driver).     You  are  to  task  the 

564 


BEAUTIFUL  SAVANNAH 

negroes  yourself.  They  are  responsible  to  you  alone  for 
work. 

Certain  negroes  are  mentioned  by  name : 

Many  persons  are  indebted  to  Elsey  for  attending 
upon  their  negroes.  I  wish  you  to  see  them  or  send  to 
them  for  the  money. 

If  Dolly  is  unable  to  return  to  cooking  she  must  take 
charge  of  all  the  little  negroes. 

Pay  Free  Moses  two  dollars  and  a  half  for  taking  care 
of  things  left  at  his  landing. 

Bull  Street,  the  fashionable  street  of  the  city,  is  a  gem 
of  a  street,  despite  the  incursions  made  at  not  infrequent 
intervals,  by  comparatively  new,  and  often  very  ugly 
buildings.  Every  few  blocks  Bull  Street  has  to  turn 
out  of  its  course  and  make  the  circuit  of  one  of  the  small 
parks  of  which  I  have  spoken,  and  this  gives  it  charm 
and  variety.  On  this  street  stands  the  De  Soto  Hotel, 
which,  when  I  first  went  to  Savannah,  years  ago,  was  by 
all  odds  the  leading  hostelry  of  the  city.  It  is  one  of 
those  great  rambling  buildings  with  a  big  porch  out  in 
front,  an  open  court  in  back,  and  everything  about  it,  in- 
cluding the  bedchambers,  very  spacious  and  rather  old 
fashioned.  Lately  the  Savannah  Hotel  has  been  erected 
down  at  the  business  end  of  Bull  Street.  It  is  a  modern 
hotel  of  the  more  conventional  commercial  type.  But 
even  down  there,  near  the  business  part  of  town,  it  is  not 
confronted  by  congested  cobbled  streets  and  clanging 
trolley  cars,  but  looks  out  upon  one  of  the  squares,  filled 

565 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

with  magnolias,  oaks  and  palms.  But  another  time  I 
think  1  shall  go  back  to  the  De  Soto. 

The  building  of  the  Independent  Presbyterian  Church, 
on  Bull  Street,  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  its  kind  in 
the  country,  inside  and  out.  It  reminds  one  of  the  old 
churches  in  Charleston,  and  it  is  gratifying  to  know  that 
though  the  old  church  which  stood  on  this  site  (dedi- 
cated in  1819)  burned  in  1889,  the  congregation  did  not 
seize  the  opportunity  to  replace  it  with  a  hideosity  in 
lemon-yellow  brick,  but  had  the  rare  good  sense  to  dupli- 
cate the  old  church  exactly,  with  the  result  that,  though  a 
new  building,  it  has  all  the  dignity  and  simple  beauty  of 
an  old  one. 

Broughton  Street,  the  shopping  street,  crosses  Bull 
Street  in  the  downtown  section,  and  looks  ashamed  of 
itself  as  it  does  so,  for  it  is  about  as  commonplace  a  look- 
ing street  as  one  may  see.  There  is  simply  nothing  about 
it  of  distinction  save  its  rather  handsome  name. 

Elsewhere,  however,  there  are  several  skyscrapers, 
most  of  them  good  looking  buildings.  It  seemed  to  me 
also  that  I  had  never  seen  so  many  banks  as  in  Savan- 
nah, and  I  am  told  that  it  is,  indeed,  a  great  bank- 
ing city,  and  that  the  record  of  the  Savannah  banks 
for  weathering  financial  storms  is  very  fine.  On  a  good 
many  corners  where  there  are  not  banks  there  are  clubs, 
and  some  of  these  clubs  are  delightful  and  thoroughly 
metropolitan  in  character.  I  know  of  no  city  in  the 
North,  having  a  population  corresponding  to  that  of 
Charleston  or  of  Savannah,  which  has  clubs  comparable 

566 


BEAUTIFUL  SAVANNAH 

with  the  best  clubs  of  these  cities,  or  of  New  Orleans. 
When  it  is  considered  that  of  the  population  of  these 
southern  cities  approximately  one  half,  representing 
negroes,  must  be  deducted  in  considering  the  population 
from  which  eligibles  must  be  drawn,  the  excellence  of 
southern  clubs  becomes  remarkable  in  the  extreme. 
Savannah,  by  the  way,  holds  one  national  record  in  the 
matter  of  clubs.  It  had  the  first  golf  club  founded  in 
America.  Exactly  when  the  club  was  founded  I  can- 
not sa}^,  but  Mr.  H.  H.  Bruen,  of  Savannah,  has  in  his 
possession  an  invitation  to  a  golf  club  ball  held  in  the 
old  City  Hall  in  the  year  1811. 

The  commercial  ascendancy  of  Savannah  over 
Charleston  is  due  largely  to  natural  causes.  The  port  of 
Savannah  drains  exports  from  a  larger  and  richer  ter- 
ritory than  is  tapped  by  Charleston,  though  new  rail- 
roads are  greatly  improving  Charleston's  situation  in 
this  respect.  Savannah  is  a  shipping  port  for  cotton 
from  a  vast  part  of  the  lower  and  central  South,  and  is 
also  a  great  port  for  lumber,  .and  the  greatest  port  in  the 
world  for  "naval  stores."  I  did  not  know  what  naval 
stores  were  when  I  went  to  Savannah.  The  term  con- 
jured up  in  my  mind  pictures  of  piles  of  rope,  pulleys 
and  anchors.  But  those  are  not  naval  stores.  Naval 
stores  are  gum  products,  such  as  resin  and  turpentine, 
which  are  obtained  from  the  long-leafed  pines  of  South 
Carolina,  Georgia,  Alabama  and  Florida.  The  traveler 
through  these  States  cannot  have  failed  to  notice  gashes 
on  the  tree-trunks   along  the  way.     From   these   the 

567 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

resinous  sap  exudes  and  is  caught  in  cups,  after  which 
it  is  boiled,  there  in  the  woods,  and  thus  separated  into 
turpentine,  resin  and  pitch.  Vast  quantities  of  these 
materials  are  stored  on  the  great  modern  docks  of  Savan- 
nah. It  is  said  that  owing  to  wasteful  methods,  the 
long-leafed  pine  forests  are  being  rapidly  destroyed,  and 
that  this  industry  will  die  out  before  very  long  because 
the  eager  grabbers  of  to-day's  dollars,  having  no  thought 
for  the  future,  fail  to  practise  scientific  forestry. 

AH  about  Savannah,  within  easy  reach  by  trolley, 
motor  or  boat,  lie  pleasant  retreats  and  interesting  things 
to  see.  The  roads  of  the  region,  built  by  convict  labor, 
are  of  the  finest,  and  the  convict  prison  camps  are  worth 
a  visit.  In  the  Brown  Farm  camp,  living  conditions  are 
certainly  more  sanitary  than  in  ninety  nine  out  of  a  hun- 
dred negro  homes.  The  place  fairly  shines  with  clean- 
liness, and  there  are  many  cases  in  which  "regulars"  at 
this  camp  are  no  sooner  released  than  they  offend  again 
with  the  deliberate  purpose  of  carrying  out  w^hat  may  be 
termed  a  "back  to  the  farm"  movement.  The  color  line 
is  drawn  in  southern  jails  and  convict  camps  as  else- 
where. White  prisoners  occupy  one  barracks;  negroes 
another.  The  food  and  accommodations  for  both  is  the 
same.  The  only  race  discrimination  I  could  discover 
was  that  when  wdiite  prisoners  are  punished  by  flogging, 
they  are  flogged  w^ith  their  clothes  on,  whereas,  with 
negroes,  the  back  is  exposed.  The  men  in  this  camp  are 
minor  offenders  and  wear  khaki  overalls  in  place  of  the 
stripes  in  which  the  worse  criminals,  quartered  in  an- 

568 


BEAUTIFUL  SAVANNAH 

other  camp,  are  dressed.  Strict  discipline  is  maintained, 
but  the  hfe  is  wholesome.  The  men  are  marched  to 
work  in  the  morning  and  back  at  night  escorted  by 
guards  who  carry  loaded  shotguns,  and  who  always  have 
with  them  a  pack  of  ugly  bloodhounds  to  be  used  in  case 
escape  is  attempted. 

All  the  drives  in  this  region  are  extremely  pictur- 
esque, for  the  live-oak  grows  here  at  its  best,  and  is  to  be 
seen  everywhere,  its  trunk  often  twenty  or  more  feet  in 
circumference,  its  wide-spreading  branches  reaching 
out  their  tips  to  meet  those  of  other  trees  of  the  same 
species,  so  that  sometimes  the  whole  world  seems  to  have 
a  groined  ceiling  of  foliage,  a  ceiling  which  inevitably 
suggests  a  great  shadowy  cathedral  from  whose  airy 
arches  hang  long  gray  pennons  of  Spanish  moss,  like 
faded,  tattered  battle-flags. 

On  country  roads  you  will  come,  now  and  then,  upon 
a  negro  burial  ground  of  very  curious  character.  There 
may  be  such  negro  cemeteries  in  the  upper  Southern 
States,  but  if  so  I  have  never  seen  them.  In  this  por- 
tion of  Georgia  they  are  numerous,  and  their  distin- 
guishing mark  consists  in  the  little  piles  of  household 
effects  with  which  every  grave  is  covered.  I  do  not 
know  whether  this  is  done  to  propitiate  ghosts  and  devils 
(generally  believed  to  ''hant"  these  graveyards),  or 
whether  it  is  the  idea  that  the  deceased  can  still  find  use 
for  the  assortment  of  pitchers,  bowls,  cups,  saucers, 
knives,    forks,    spoons,    statuettes,    alarm-clocks,    and 

569 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

heaven  only  knows  what  else,  which  were  his  treasured 
earthly  possessions. 

In  Savannah,  I  have  heard  Commodore  Tatnall,  who 
used  to  live  at  Bonaventurc,  credited  with  having  origi- 
nated the  saying  "Blood  is  thicker  than  water,"  but  I  am 
inclined  to  believe  that  the  Commodore  merely  made  ap- 
posite use  of  an  old  formula.  The  story  is  told  of 
one  of  the  old  Tatnalls  that  in  the  midst  of  a  large 
dinner-party  which  he  was  giving  at  his  mansion 
at  Bonaventure  plantation,  a  servant  entered  and  in- 
formed him  that  the  house  was  on  fire.  Whereupon  the 
old  thoroughbred,  instead  of  turning  fireman,  persisted 
In  his  role  of  host,  ordering  the  full  dining-room  equip- 
ment to  be  moved  out  upon  the  lawn,  where  the  company 
remained  at  dinner  while  the  house  burned  down. 

Most  of  the  old  houses  of  the  plantations  on  the  river 
have  long  since  been  destroyed.  That  at  Whitehall 
was  burned  by  the  negroes  when  Sherman's  army  came 
b}^,  but  the  old  trees  and  gardens  still  endure,  including  a 
tall  hedge  of  holly  which  is  remarkable  even  in  this 
florescent  region.  The  old  plantation  house  at  the 
Hermitage,  approached  by  a  handsome  avenue  of  live- 
oaks,  is,  I  believe,  the  only  one  of  those  ancient  mansions 
which  still  stands,  and  it  does  not  stand  very  strongly, 
for,  beautiful  though  it  is  in  its  abandonment  and  decay, 
it  is  like  some  noble  old  gentleman  dying  alone  in  an 
attic,  of  age,  poverty  and  starvation — dying  proudly 
as  poor  Charles  Gayarre  did  in  New  Orleans. 

The  Hermitage  has,  I  believe,  no  great  history  save 

570 


BEAUTIFUL  SAVANNAH 

what  is  written  in  its  old  chipped  walls  of  stucco-covered 
brick,  and  the  slave-cabins  which  still  form  a  background 
for  it.  It  is  a  story  of  baronial  decay,  resulting,  doubt- 
less, from  the  termination  of  slavery.  Hordes  of  ne- 
groes of  the  "new  issue"  infest  the  old  slave-cabins  and 
on  sight  of  visitors  rush  out  with  almost  violent  demands 
for  money,  In  return  for  which  they  wish  to  sing.  Their 
singing  is,  however,  the  poorest  negro  singing  I  have 
ever  heard.  All  the  spontaneity,  all  the  relish,  all  the 
vividness  which  makes  negro  singing  wonderful,  has 
been  removed,  here,  by  the  fixed  idea  that  singing  is  not 
a  form  of  expression  but  a  mere  noise  to  be  given  vent 
to  for  the  purpose  of  extracting  backsheesh.  It  is 
saddening  to  witness  the  degradation,  through  what  may 
be  called  professionalism,  of  any  great  racial  quality. 
These  negroes,  half  mendicant,  half  traders  on  the  repu- 
tation of  their  race,  express  professionalism  in  its  low- 
est form.  They  are  more  pitiful  than  the  professional 
tarantella  dancers  who  await  the  arrival  of  tourists,  in 
certain  parts  of  southern  Italy,  as  spiders  await  flies. 


S7^ 


CHAPTER  LII 
AIISS  "JAX"  AND  SOME  EEORIDA  GOSSIP 

"Or  mebbe  you  re  inteiulin'  of 

Investments?     Orange-plantin'?     Pine? 
Hotel?  or  Sanitarium?     What  above 
This  yca'th  can  be  your  line?  .  .  ." 

Sidney  Lanier  ("A  Florida  Ghost.") 

IT  is  the  boast  of  Jacksonville  (known  locally  by  the 
convenient  abbreviation  '7^'^-^")  that  it  stands  as  the 
''Gate  to  Florida."  But  the  fact  that  a  gate  is  some- 
thing through  which  people  pass — usually  without  stop- 
ping— causes  some  anguish  to  an  active  Chamber  of 
Commerce,  which  has  been  known  to  send  bands  to  the 
railway  station  to  serenade  tourists  in  the  hope  of  entic- 
ing them  to  alight. 

If  I  were  to  personify  Jacksonville,  it  would  be,  I 
think,  as  an  amiable  young  woman,  member  of  a  do- 
mestic family,  whose  papa  and  mama  had  moved  to 
Florida  from  somewhere  else — for  it  is  as  hard  to  find  a 
native  of  Jacksonville  in  that  city  as  to  find  a  native  New 
Yorker  in  New  York.  ]\Iiss  Jacksonville's  papa,  as  I 
conceive  it,  has  prospered  while  daughter  has  been 
growing  up,  and  has  bought  for  her  a  fine  large  house  on 
a  main  corner,  where  many  people  pass.  Having 
reached   maturity   Aliss   Jacksonville   wishes   to   be   in 

572 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Florida  society — to  give,  as  it  were,  house  parties,  like 
those  of  her  neighbors,  the  other  winter  resorts.  She 
sees  people  passing  her  doors  all  winter  long,  and  she 
says  to  herself:  "I  must  get  some  of  these  people  to 
come  in." 

To  this  end  she  brushes  off  the  walk,  lays  a  carpet  on 
the  steps,  puts  flowers  in  the  vases,  orders  up  a  lot  of 
fancy  food  and  drink  (from  the  very  admirable  Hotel 
Mason),  turns  on  the  lights  and  the  Victor,  leaves  the 
front  door  invitingly  open,  and  hopes  for  the  best. 
Soon  people  begin  to  come  in,  but  as  she  meets  them  she 
discovers  that  most  of  them  have  come  to  see  papa  on 
business ;  only  a  few  have  come  on  her  account.  They 
help  themselves  to  sandwiches,  look  about  the  room,  and 
listen  to  what  Miss  Jacksonville  has  to  say. 

Time  passes.  Nothing  happens.  She  asks  how  they 
like  the  chairs. 

"Very  comfortable,"  they  assure  her. 

"Do  have  some  more  to  eat  and  drink,"  says  she. 

"What  is  your  history?"  a  guest  asks  her  presently. 

"I  haven't  much  history  to  speak  of,"  she  replies. 
"They  tell  me  Andrew  Jackson  had  his  territorial  gov- 
ernment about  where  my  house  stands,  but  I  don't 
know  much  about  it.  We  don't  care  much  about  his- 
tory in  our  family." 

"What  do  you  do  with  yourself?" 

"Oh,  I  keep  house,  and  go  occasionally  to  the  Woman's 
Club,  and  in  the  evenings  father  tells  me  about  his  busi- 
ness." 

573 


MISS  "JAX"  AND  SOME  FLORIDA  GOSSIP 

"Very  nice,"  says  one  guest,  whom  we  shall  picture  as 
a  desirable  and  wealthy  young  man  from  the  North. 
"Now  let 's  do  something.  Do  you  play  or  sing?  Are 
you  athletic?  Do  you  go  boating  on  the  St.  John's 
River?     Do  you  gamble?     Can  you  make  love?" 

"I  dance  a  little  and  play  a  little  golf  out  at  the 
Florida  Country  Club,"  she  says,  with  but  small  signs  of 
enthusiasm,  "The  thing  I  'm  really  most  interested  in, 
though,  is  father's  business.  He  lost  a  lot  of  money  in 
the  fire  of  1901,  but  he  's  made  it  all  back  and  a  lot  more 
besides." 

"\\'hat  about  surf-bathing?"  asks  the  pleasure-seeking 
visitor,  stifling  a  yawn. 

"There 's  Atlantic  Beach  only  eighteen  miles  from 
here.  It 's  a  wonderful  beach.  Father  's  putting  a  mil- 
lion in  improvements  out  there,  but  there  's  no  time  to 
go  there  just  now.  However,  if  you  'd  like  to,  I  can 
take  you  down  and  show  you  the  new  docks  he  has 
built." 

"Oh,  no,  thanks,"  says  the  guest.  "I  don't  care  for 
docks — not,  that  is,  unless  we  can  go  boating." 

"I  'm  afraid  we  can't  do  that,"  says  Miss  Jackson- 
ville. "We  don't  use  the  river  much  for  pleasure.  I 
can't  say  just  why,  unless  it  is  that  every  one  is 
too  busy.  .  .  .  But  please  eat  something  more,  and 
do  have  something  to  drink.  There  's  plenty  for  every 
one." 

"I  must  be  running  along,"  says  the  visitor.  "T  've 
been  invited  to  call  at  some  other  houses  down  the  block. 

574 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

By  the  way,  what  is  the  name  of  your  neighbor  next 
door?" 

"St.  Augustine,"  says  Jacksonville,  with  a  little  re- 
luctance. "She  is  of  Spanish  descent  and  sets  great 
store  by  it.  If  you  call  there  she  '11  show  you  a  lot  of 
interesting  old  relics  she  has,  but  I  assure  you  that  when 
it  comes  to  commercial  success  her  family  is  n't  one-two- 
three  with  papa." 

"Thanks,"  says  the  visitor,  "but  just  at  the  moment 
commerce  does  n't  appeal  to  me.  Who  lives  beyond 
her?" 

Miss  Jacksonville  sighs.  "There  are  some  pleasant, 
rather  attractive  people  named  Ormonde,  beyond,"  she 
says,  "and  a  lively  family  named  Daytona  next  door  to 
them.  Neither  family  is  in  business,  like  papa.  They 
just  play  all  the  time.  Then  come  a  number  of  modest 
places,  and  after  them,  in  the  big  vellow  and  white 
house  with  the  palm  trees  all  around  it — but  I  'd  advise 
you  to  keep  away  from  there !  Yes,  you  'd  better  go 
by  that  house.  On  the  other  side  of  it,  in  another  lovely 
house,  live  some  nicer,  simpler  people  named  Miami. 
Or  if  you  like  fishing,  you  might  drop  in  on  Mrs.  Long- 
Key — she  's  wholesome  and  sweet,  and  goes  out  every 
day  to  catch  tarpon.     Or,  again,  you  might — " 

"What 's  the  matter  with  the  people  in  the  big  yellow 
and  white  house  surrounded  by  palm  trees?  Why 
should  n't  I  go  there  ?"  asks  the  guest. 

"A  young  widow  lives  there,"  says  Miss  Jackson- 
ville primly.     "I  don't  know  much  about  her  history,  but 

575 


MISS  "JAX"  AND  SOME  FLORIDA  GOSSIP 

she  looks  to  nic  as  though  she  had  been  on  llie  stage. 
She  's  frightfully  frivolous — not  at  all  one  of  our  rei)re- 
sentative  people." 

"Ah!"  says  the  visitor.     "Is  she  pretty?" 

"Well,"  admits  Miss  Jacksonville,  "I  suppose  she  is — 
in  a  fast  way.  But  she  's  all  rouged  and  she  over- 
dresses. Her  bathing  suits  are  too  short  at  the  bottom 
and  her  evening  gowns  are  too  short  at  the  top.  ^'es, 
and  even  at  that,  she  has  a  trick  of  letting  the  shoulder 
straps  slip  off  and  pretending  she  does  n't  know  it  has 
ha])pened." 

"What  's  her  name?" 

"Mrs.  Palm-Beach." 

"Oh,"  says  the  visitor.  "T  'vc  heard  of  her.  She  's 
always  getting  into  the  papers.     Tell  nie  more." 

Miss  Jacksonville  purses  her  lips  and  raises  her  eye- 
brows. "Really,"  she  says,  "I  don't  like  to  talk 
scandal." 

"Oh,  come  on!  Do!"  pleads  the  visitor.  "Is  she  bad 
— bad  and  beautiful  and  alluring?" 

"Judge  for  yourself,"  says  Miss  Jacksonville  sharply. 
"She  keeps  that  enormous  place  of  hers  shut  up  except 
for  about  two  months  or  so  in  the  winter,  when  she 
comes  down  gorgeously  dressed,  with  more  jewelry  than 
is  worn  b>  the  rest  of  the  neighborhood  put  together. 
Few  Southerners  go  to  her  house.  It 's  full  of  rich 
people  from  all  over  the  North." 

"Is  she  rich  ^" 

"You  'd  think  so  to  look  at  her — especially  if  you 

576 


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AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

did  n't  know  where  she  got  her  money.  But  she  really 
has  n't  much  of  her  own.     She  's  a  grafter." 

''How  does  she  manage  it?" 

"Men  give  her  money." 

"But  why?" 

"Because  she  knows  how  to  please  the  rich.  She  un- 
derstands them.  She  makes  herself  beautiful  for  them. 
She  plays,  and  drinks,  and  gambles,  and  dances  with 
them,  and  goes  riding  with  them  in  wheel  chairs  by 
moonlight,  and  sits  with  them  by  the  sea,  and  holds  their 
hands,  and  gets  them  sentimental.  There  's  some  scent 
she  uses  that  is  very  seductive — none  of  the  rest  of  us 
have  been  able  to  find  out  exactly  what  it  is." 

"But  how  does  she  get  their  money?" 

"She  never  tells  a  hard-luck  story — you  can't  get 
money  out  of  the  kind  she  goes  with,  that  way.  She 
takes  the  other  tack.  She  whispers  to  them,  and  laughs 
with  them,  and  fondles  them,  and  makes  them  love  her, 
and  when  they  love  her  she  says:  'But  dearie,  be  rea- 
sonable! Think  how  many  people  love  me!  I  like  to 
have  you  here,  you  fat  old  darling  with  the  gold  jin- 
gling in  your  pockets!  but  I  can't  let  you  sit  with  me 
unless  you  pay.  Yes,  I  'm  expensive,  I  admit.  But 
don't  you  love  this  scent  I  wear?  Don't  you  adore  my 
tropical  winter  sea,  my  gardens,  my  palm  trees,  my 
moonlight,  and  my  music?  They  are  all  for  you,  dearie 
— so  why  should  n't  you  pay  ?  Don't  I  take  you  from 
the  northern  cold  and  slush  ?  Have  n't  I  built  a  siding 
for  your  private  car,  and  made  an  anchorage  for  your 

577 


MISS  "JAX"  AND  SOME  FLORIDA  GOSSIP 

yacht  ?  Don't  I  let  you  do  as  you  please  ?  Don't  I  keep 
you  amused?  Don't  you  love  to  look  at  me?  Don't  I 
put  my  warm  red  lips  to  yours?  Well,  then,  dearie, 
what  is  all  your  money  for?'  .  .  .  That  is  her  way  of 
talking  to  them !  That  is  the  sort  of  creature  that  she 
is!" 

''Shocking!"  says  the  visitor,  rising  and  looking  for 
his  hat.  "Vou  say  hers  is  the  third  large  house  from 
here?" 

"Yes.     Remember,  she  's  as  mercenary  as  can  be !" 

"Thanks.  I  can  take  care  of  myself.  If  she  's  amus- 
ing that  suits  me.     Good-by." 

In  the  vestibule  he  pauses  to  count  his  money. 

"Jacksonville  seems  to  be  a  nice  girl,"  he  says  to  him- 
self as  he  hastens  down  the  block.  'T  imagine  she  might 
make  a  good  wife  and  mother,  and  that  she  'd  hel])  her 
husband  on  in  business.  However,  I  'm  not  thinking  of 
getting  married  and  settling  down  in  Florida.  I  'm 
out  for  some  fun.  I  think  I  '11  run  in  and  call  upon 
Mrs.  Palm-Beach." 


578 


CHAPTER  LIII 
PASSIONATE  PALM  BEACH 

A  very  merry,  dancing,  drinking, 
Laughing,  quaffing  and  unthinking  time. 

— Dryden. 

LIKE  all  places  in  which  idlers  try  to  avoid  finding 
out  that  they  are  idle,  Palm  Beach  has  very  defi- 
nite customs  as  to  where  to  go,  and  at  what  time 
to  go  there.  Excepting  in  its  hours  for  going  to  bed 
and  getting  up,  it  runs  on  schedule.  The  oflScial  day  be- 
gins with  the  bathing  hour — half  past  eleven  to  half 
past  twelve — when  the  two  or  three  thousand  people 
from  the  pair  of  vast  hotels  assemble  before  the  casino 
on  the  beach.  Golfers  will,  of  course,  be  upon  the  links 
before  this  hour;  fishermen  will  be  casting  from  the  pier 
or  will  be  out  in  boats  searching  the  sail  fish — that  being 
the  ''fashionable"  fish  at  the  present  time;  ladies  of  ex- 
cessive circumference  will  be  panting  rapidly  along  the 
walks,  their  eyes  holding  that  look  of  dreamy  determina- 
tion which  painters  put  into  the  eyes  of  martyrs,  and 
which  a  fixed  intention  to  lose  twenty  pounds  puts  into 
the  eyes  of  banting  women.  So,  too,  certain  gentlemen 
of  swarthy  skin  make  their  way  to  the  casino  sun  parlor, 
where  they  disrobe  and  bake  until  the  bathing  hour. 
The  object  of  this  practice  is  to  acquire,  as  nearly  as  a 

579 


AMERICAN  ADVRXTURES 

white  man  may,  the  complexion  of  a  mulatto,  and  it  is 
surprising  to  see  how  closely  the  skins  of  some  mure 
ardent  members  of  the  "Browning  Club,"  as  this  group 
is  called,  match  those  of  their  chair  boys.  The  under- 
lying theory  of  the  "Browning  Club"  is  that  a  triple- 
plated  coat  of  tan,  taken  north  in  March,  advertises  the 
wearer  as  having  been  at  Palm  Beach  during  the  entire 
winter,  thus  establishing  him  as  a  man  not  merely  of 
means,  but  of  great  endurance. 

The  women  of  Palm  Beach  seem  to  be  divided  into 
two  distinct  schools  of  thought  on  the  subject  of  tanning. 
While  none  of  them  compete  with  the  radicals  of  the 
"Browning  Club,''  one  may  nevertheless  observe  that,  in 
evening  dress,  many  young  ladies  reveal  upon  their 
necks,  shoulders,  and  arms,  stenciled  outlines  of  the 
upper  margins  of  their  bathing  suits.  Ladies  of  the 
opposing  school,  upon  the  contrary,  guard  the  whiteness 
of  their  skins  as  jealously  as  the  men  of  the  "Browning 
Club"  guard  their  blackness.  Rather  than  be  touched 
with  tan,  many  ladies  of  the  latter  group  deny  them- 
selves the  pleasures  of  the  surf.  The  parasols  beneath 
which  they  arrive  upon  the  sands  are  not  lowered  until 
they  are  safely  seated  beneath  the  green  and  blue  striped 
canvas  tops  of  their  beach  chairs,  and  it  may  be  ob- 
served that  even  then  they  are  additionally  fortified 
against  the  light,  by  wide  black  hats  and  thick  dark  veils 
draped  to  mask  their  faces  up  to  the  eyes;  "harem" 
veils,  they  call  them — the  name,  however,  signifying 
nothing  polygamous. 

580 


V-   VV  (>j  1  2.  (1-  «►  s-  \ 


I!ocktail  hour  at  The  Breakers 


PASSIONATE  PALM  BEACH 

A  pleasant  diversion  at  the  beginning  of  the  bathing 
hour  occurs  when  some  mere  one-horse  miUionaire  from 
a  Middle-Western  town  appears  on  the  beach  with  his 
family.  He  is  newly  arrived  and  is  under  the  fond  de- 
lusion that  he  is  as  good  as  anybody  else  and  that  his 
money  is  as  good  as  any  other  person's  money.  Seeing 
the  inviting  rows  of  beach  chairs,  he  and  his  family 
plump  into  several  of  them.  They  are  hardly  settled, 
however,  when  the  man  who  attends  to  the  beach  chairs 
comes  and  asks  them  to  get  out,  saying  that  the  chairs 
are  reserved. 

The  other  thinks  the  man  is  lying  like  a  head  waiter, 
and  demands  to  know  for  whom  the  chairs  are  re- 
served. 

In  reply  the  beach-chair  man  mentions,  with  suitable 
deference,  the  name  of  Mrs.  Hopkinson  Skipkinson 
Jumpkinson- Jones. 

"Well,"  cries  the  Middle-Westerner,  "Mrs.  Jones 
is  n't  here  yet,  is  she?  She  can't  use  the  chairs  now,  can 
she,  if  she  is  n't  here?" 

Even  without  this  evidence  that  he  does  not  grasp  at 
all,  the  seriousness  of  the  beach-chair  situation,  the  fact 
that  the  uncouth  stranger  has  referred  to  Mrs.  H.  S. 
Jumpkinson-Jones  merely  as  "Mrs.  Jones,"  brands  him 
among  the  Palm  Beach  "regulars"  who  have  overheard 
him,  as  a  barbarian  of  the  barbarians.  People  in  neigh- 
boring chairs  at  once  turn  their  backs  upon  him  and 
glance  at  each  other  knowingly  with  raised  eyebrows. 
At  this  juncture,  let  us  hope,  the  daughter  of  the  in- 

581 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

truder  manages  to  pry  him  loose;  let  us  hope  also  that 
she  takes  him  aside  and  tells  him  what  everybody  ought 
to  know:  namely,  that  Mrs.  H.  S.  Jumpkinson-Jones  has 
been  a  society  leader  ever  since  the  "Jo^-^^"^! '  published 
the  full-page  Sunday  story  about  her  having  gold  fill- 
ings put  in  her  Boston  terrier's  teeth.  That  was  away 
back  in  191 3,  just  before  she  was  allowed  to  get  her 
divorce  from  Royal  Tewksbury  Johnson  III  of  Paris, 
Newport,  and  New  York.  The  day  after  the  divorce 
she  married  her  present  husband,  and  up  to  last  year, 
when  the  respective  wives  of  a  munitions  millionaire 
and  a  moving-picture  millionaire  began  to  cut  in  on  her, 
no  one  thought  of  denying  her  claim  to  be  the  most 
wasteful  woman  in  Palm  Beach. 

True,  she  may  not  come  down  to  the  beach  to-day,  but 
in  that  case  it  is  obviously  proper  that  her  chairs — in- 
cluding those  of  her  dog  and  her  husband — remain  mag- 
nificently vacant  throughout  the  bathing  hour. 

The  lady  is,  however,  likely  to  appear.  She  will  be 
wearing  one  of  the  seventy  hats  which,  we  have  learned 
by  the  papers,  she  brought  with  her,  and  a  pint  or  so  of 
her  lesser  pearls.  Her  dog — which  is  sometimes  served 
beside  her  at  table  at  the  Beach  Club,  and  whose  diet 
is  the  same  as  her  own,  even  to  strawberries  and  cream 
followed  by  a  demi  tasse — will  be  in  attendance ;  and  her 
husband,  whose  diet  is  even  richer,  may  also  appear  if 
he  has  recovered  from  his  matutinal  headache.  Here 
she  will  sit  through  the  hour,  gossiping  with  her  friends, 

582 


PASSIONATE  PALM  BEACH 

watching  the  antics  of  several  beautiful,  dubious  women, 
camp  followers  of  the  rich,  who  add  undoubted  interest 
to  the  place ;  calling  languidly  to  her  dog :  "Viens,  Tou- 
tou!  Viens  vite!"  above  all  waiting  patiently,  with 
crossed  knees,  for  news-service  photographers  to  come 
and  take  her  picture — a  picture  which,  when  we  see  it 
presently  in  ''Vogue,"  "Vanity  Fair,"  or  a  Sunday  news- 
paper, will  present  indisputable  proof  that  Mrs.  H.  S. 
Jumpkinson- Jones  and  the  ladies  sitting  near  her  (also 
with  legs  crossed)  refrained  from  wearing  bathing  suits 
neither  through  excessive  modesty  nor  for  fear  of  re- 
vealing deformity  of  limb. 

Many  a  Mrs.  H.  S.  Jumpkinson-Jones  has  beaten  her 
way  to  glory  by  the  Palm  Beach  route.  Many  of  the 
names  which  sound  vaguely  familiar  when  you  read 
them  in  connection  with  the  story  of  a  jewel  robbery,  in 
lists  of  ''those  present,"  or  in  an  insinuating  paragraph 
in  the  tattered  copy  of  "Town  Topics"  which  you  pick 
up,  in  lieu  of  reading  matter,  from  the  table  in  your  den- 
tist's waiting  room,  first  broke  into  the  paradise  of  the 
society  column  by  way  of  this  resort.  For  a  woman 
with  money  and  the  press-agent  type  of  mind  it  is  not  a 
difficult  thing  to  accomplish.  One  must  think  of  sensa- 
tional things  to  do — invent  a  new  fad  in  dress,  or  send 
one's  dog  riding  each  day  in  a  special  wheel  chair,  or 
bring  down  one's  own  private  dancing  instructor  or  golf 
instructor  at  $5,000  for  the  season.  Above  all,  one  must 
be  nice  to  the  correspondents  of  newspapers.     Never 

583 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

must  one  forget  to  do  that.  Never  must  one  imagine 
oneself  so  securely  placed  in  society  columns  that  one 
may  forget  the  reporters  who  gave  one  that  place. 

One  lady  who,  for  several  seasons,  figured  extensively 
in  the  news  from  Palm  Beach,  fell  into  this  error.  She 
thought  herself  safe,  and  altered  her  manner  toward 
newspaper  folk.  But,  alas !  thereupon  they  altered  their 
manner  toward  her.  The  press  clippings  sent  by  the 
bureau  to  which  she  subscribed  l^ecame  fewer  and  fewer. 
Her  sensational  feats  went  unnoticed.  At  last  came  a 
ball — one  of  the  three  big  balls  of  the  season;  a  New 
York  paper  printed  a  list  of  names  of  persons  who  went 
to  the  ball ;  a  column  of  names  in  very  small  type.  Lying 
in  bed  a  few  mornings  later  she  read  through  the  names 
and  came  to  the  end  without  finding  her  own.  Thinking 
that  she  must  have  skipped  it,  she  read  the  names  over 
again  with  great  care.  Then  she  sent  for  her  husband, 
and  he  read  them.  When  it  was  clear  to  them  both  that 
her  name  was  actually  not  there,  it  is  said  she  went  into 
hysterics.  At  all  events,  her  husband  came  down  in  a 
rage  and  complained  to  the  hotel  management.  But 
\\hat  could  the  management  do?  ^^'hat  can  they  do? 
llie  woman  is  doomed.  The  Palm  Beach  correspond- 
ents who  ''made"  her  have  been  snubbed  by  her  and  have 
unanimously  declared  "thumbs  down."  It  is  theirs  to 
give,  but  let  no  climber  be  unmindful  of  the  fact  that  it 
is  also  theirs  to  take  away! 

As  IVIrs.  H.  S.  Jumpkinson-Jones  looks  over  the  top 
of  her  harem  veil  she  may  see  a  great  glistening  steam 

'584 


PASSIONATE  PALM  BEACH 

yacht,  with  rakish  masts  and  funnel,  lying  off  the  pier- 
head ;  and  down  on  the  sand  she  may  see  the  young  mas- 
ter and  mistress  of  that  yacht :  a  modest,  attractive  pair, 
possessors  of  one  of  the  world's  great  fortunes,  yet  not 
nearly  so  elaborately  dressed,  nor  so  insistent  upon  their 
"position,"  as  the  Tumpkinson-Joneses.  By  raising  the 
brim  of  her  hat  a  trifle  INIrs.  H.  S.  Jumpkinson-Jones 
may  see,  sweeping  in  glorious  circles  above  the  yacht, 
the  hydroplane  w^hich,  when  it  left  the  edge  of  the  beach 
a  few  minutes  since,  blew  back  with  its  propeller  a  sting- 
ing storm  of  sand,  and  caused  skirts  to  snap  like  flags 
in  a  hundred-mile-an-hour  hurricane ;  and  in  that  hydro- 
plane she  knows  there  is  another  multimillionaire. 

Near  by,  sitting  disconsolately  upon  the  sand,  are  the 
one-horse  j\Iiddle-\'\^estern  millionaire  with  his  wife  and 
daughter — the  three  who  were  ousted  from  her  seats 
by  the  beach-chair  man.  Mrs.  H.  S.  Jumpkinson-Jones, 
like  every  one  who  has  spent  a  season,  let  alone  half  a 
dozen  seasons,  at  Palm  Beach,  immediately  recognizes 
the  type. 

Father  is  the  leading  merchant  of  his  town;  mother 
the  social  arbiter;  daughter  the  regnant  belle.  Father 
definitely  did  n't  wish  to  come  here,  nor  was  mother 
anxious  to,  but  daughter  made  them.  Often  she  has 
read  the  lists  of  prominent  arrivals  at  Palm  Beach  and 
seen  alluring  pictures  of  them  taken  on  the  sand.  She 
has  dreamed  of  the  place,  and  in  her  dreams  has  seemed 
to  hear  the  call  of  Destiny.  Who  knows  ?  may  it  not  be 
at  Palm  Beach  that  she  will  meet  himf — the  beautiful 

585 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

and  wealthy  scion  of  a  noble  house  who  (so  the  for- 
tune teller  at  the  Elks'  Club  bazaar  told  her)  will  rescue 
her  from  the  narrow  life  at  home,  and  transport  her,  as 
his  bride,  into  a  world  of  wonder  and  delight,  and  foot- 
men in  knee-breeches.  Daughter  insisted  on  Palm 
Beach.  So  mother  got  a  lot  of  pretty  clothes  for  daugh- 
ter, and  father  purchased  several  yards  of  green  and 
yellow  railroad  tickets,  and  off  they  went.  They  ar- 
rived at  Palm  Beach.  They  walked  the  miles  of  green 
carpeted  corridor.  They  were  dazed — as  every  one 
must  be  who  sees  them  for  the  first  time — at  the  stun- 
ning size  of  the  hotels.  They  looked  upon  the  endless 
promenade  of  other  visitors.  They  went  to  the  beach 
at  bathing  hour,  to  the  cocoanut  grove  at  the  time  for 
tea  and  dancing,  in  wheel  chairs  through  the  jungle 
trail  and  Revc  d'Etc,  to  the  waiters'  cake  walk  in  the 
Poinciana  dining  room,  to  the  concert  at  the  Breakers, 
to  the  palm  room,  and  to  the  sea  by  moonlight;  every- 
where they  went  they  saw  people,  people,  people :  richly 
dressed  people,  gay  people,  people  who  knew  quantities 
of  other  people;  yet  among  them  all  was  not  one  sin- 
gle being  that  they  had  ever  seen  before.  After  several 
days  of  this,  father  met  a  man  he  knew — a  business 
friend  from  Akron.  A  precious  lot  of  good  that  did! 
Why  did  n't  father  know  the  two  young  men  who  sat 
last  night  at  the  next  table  in  the  dining  room?  Even 
those  two  would  have  done  just  now.  Clearly  they  had 
been  mad  to  know  her  too,  for  they  were  likewise  feel- 
ing desolate.     Perhaps  mother  can  get  father  to  scrape 

586 


PASSIONATE  PALM  BEACH 

up  an  acquaintance  with  them.  But  alas,  before  this 
plan  can  be  set  in  motion,  the  two  young  men  have 
formed  their  own  conclusions  as  to  what  Palm  Beach 
is  like  when  you  do  not  know  anybody  in  the  place. 
They  have  departed.  Next  day,  when  mother  enters 
daughter's  room  to  say  good  night,  she  finds  her  weep- 
ing; and  next  day,  to  father's  infinite  relief,  they  start 
for  home.  So  it  has  gone  with  many  a  bush-league 
belle. 

Even  the  Mrs.  Jumpkinson-Joneses,  satiated  though 
they  be  with  private  cars,  press  notices,  and  Palm 
Beach,  can  hardly  fail  to  be  sensible  to  the  almost  deliri- 
ous beauty  of  the  scene  at  bathing  hour. 

Nowhere  is  the  sand  more  like  a  deep,  warm  dust  of 
yellow  gold;  nowhere  is  there  a  margin  of  the  earth  so 
splashed  with  spots  of  brilliant  color :  sweaters,  parasols, 
bathing  suits,  canvas  shelters — blue,  green,  purple,  pink, 
yellow,  orange,  scarlet — vibrating  together  in  the  sharp 
sunlight  like  brush  marks  on  a  high-keyed  canvas  by 
Sorolla ;  nowhere  has  flesh  such  living,  glittering  beauty 
as  the  flesh  of  long,  v/hite,  lovely  arms  which  flash  out, 
cold  and  dripping,  from  the  sea ;  nowhere  does  water  ap- 
pear less  like  water,  more  like  a  flowing  waste  of  liquid 
emeralds  and  sapphires,  held  perpetually  in  cool  solution 
and  edged  with  a  thousand  gleaming,  flouncing  strings 
of  pearls. 

Over  the  beach  lies  a  layer  of  people,  formed  in 
groups,  some  of  them  costumed  for  the  water,  some  for 
the  shore ;  some  of  them  known  to  the  great  lady,  many 

587 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

of  them  unknown  to  her.  The  groups  are  forever  shift- 
ing as  their  members  rise  and  run  down  to  the  sea,  or 
come  back  shiny  and  dripping,  to  fling  themselves  again 
upon  the  warm  sand,  roll  in  it,  or  stretch  out  in  lazy  com- 
fort while  their  friends  shovel  it  over  them  with  their 
hands.  Now  one  group,  or  another,  will  rise  and  form  a 
grinning  row  while  a  snap-shot  is  taken;  now  they  re- 
cline again;  now  they  scamper  down  to  see  the  hydro- 
plane come  in;  now  they  return,  drop  to  the  sand,  and 
idly  watch  women  bathers  tripping  past  them  toward  the 
water.  Here  comes  a  girl  in  silken  knickerbockers,  with 
cufifs  buttoning  over  her  stockings  like  the  cuffs  of  riding- 
breeches.  Heads  turn  simultaneously  as  she  goes  by. 
Here  is  a  tomboy  in  a  jockey  cap;  here  two  women 
wearing  over  their  bathing  suits  brilliant  colored  satin 
wraps  which  flutter  revealingly  in  the  warm,  fresh  fra- 
grant breeze.  And  now  comes  the  slender,  aristocratic, 
foreign-looking  beauty  who  w^ears  high-heeled  slippers 
with  her  bathing  costume,  and  steps  gracefully  to  the 
water's  edge  under  the  shade  of  a  bright  colored  Japa- 
nese parasol.  It  seems  that  every  one  must  now  be  on 
the  beach.  But  no!  Here  come  the  three  most  w^on- 
derf ul  of  all :  the  three  most  watched,  most  talked  about, 
most  spoiled,  most  coveted  young  women  at  Palm  Beach. 
Their  bathing  suits  are  charming:  very  short,  high 
waisted,  and  cut  at  the  top  like  Empire  evening  gowns, 
showing  lovely  arms  and  shoulders.  Hovering  about 
them,  like  flies  about  a  box  of  sweets,  yet  also  with  some- 
thing of  the  jealous  guardianship  of  watchdogs,  is  their 

588 


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PASSIONATE  PALM  BEACH 

usual  escort  of  young  men — for  though  they  know  none 
of  the  fashionable  women,  their  beauty  gives  them  a 
power  of  wide  selection  as  to  masculine  society. 

One  is  a  show  girl,  famous  in  the  way  such  girls  be- 
come famous  in  a  New  York  season,  vastly  prosperous 
(if  one  may  judge  by  appearances),  yet  with  a  pros- 
perity founded  upon  the  capitalization  of  youth  and 
amazing  loveliness  of  person.  The  other  two,  less  ad- 
vertised, but  hardly  less  striking  in  appearance,  have 
been  nicknamed,  for  the  convenience  of  the  gossips, 
'The  Queen  of  Sheba,"  and  'The  Queen  of  the  May." 
They  too  suggest,  somehow,  association  with  the  trivial 
stage,  but  it  is  said  that  one  of  them — the  slender  won- 
derfully rounded  one — has  never  had  the  footlights  in 
her  face,  but  has  been  (in  some  respects,  at  least),  a 
model. 

Like  the  climbers,  like  the  bush  league  belle,  these 
girls,  we  judge,  brought  definite  ambitions  with  them  to 
Palm  Beach.  Partly,  no  doubt,  they  came  for  pleasure, 
but  also  one  hears  stories  of  successful  ventures  made 
by  men,  on  their  behalf,  at  Beach  Club  tables,  and  of 
costly  rings  and  brooches  which  they  now  possess,  al- 
though they  did  not  bring  them  with  them.  But  after 
all,  the  sources  from  which  come  their  jeweled  trinkets 
may  only  be  surmised,  whereas,  to  the  success  of  their 
desire  for  fun,  the  eyes  and  ears  of  the  entire  smiling 
beach  bear  witness.  Watch  them  as  they  clasp  hands 
and  run  down  to  the  water's  edge;  see  them  prancing 
playfully  where  the  waves  die  on  the  sand,  while  devoted 

589 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

swains  launch  the  floating  mattress  upon  which  it  is  their 
custom  to  bask  so  picturesquely;  sec  them  now  as  they 
rush  into  the  green  waves  and  mount  the  softly  rocking 
thing;  observe  the  gleam  of  their  white  arms  as,  idly, 
they  splash  and  paddle;  note  the  languid  grace  of  their 
recumbence:  chins  on  hands,  heels  waving  lazily  in 
air ;  hear  them  squeal  in  inharmonious  unison,  as  a  young 
member  of  the  "Browning  Club,"  makes  as  though  to 
splatter  them,  or  mischievously  threatens  to  overturn 
their  unwieldy  couchlike  craft.  Free  from  the  restric- 
tion of  ideas  about  "society,"  about  the  "tradition"  of 
Palm  Beach,  about  "convention,"  they  seem  to  detect 
no  dift'erence  between  this  resort  and  certain  summer 
beaches,  more  familiar  to  them,  and  at  the  same  time 
more  used  to  boisterousness  and  cachinnation.  They  go 
everywhere,  these  girls.  You  will  see  them  having  big 
cocktails,  in  a  little  while,  on  the  porch  of  the  Breakers ; 
you  will  see  them  having  tea,  and  dancing  under  the  dry 
rustling  palm  fronds  of  the  cocoanut  grove,  when  the 
colored  electric  lights  begin  to  glow  in  the  luminous  semi- 
tropical  twilight;  and  you  will  see  them,  resplendent, 
at  the  Beach  Club,  dining,  or  playing  at  the  green- 
topped  tables. 

The  Beach  Club  has  been  for  some  time,  I  suppose,  the 
last  redout  held  in  this  country  by  the  forces  of  open, 
or  semi-open  gambling.  Every  now  and  then  one  hears 
a  rumor  that  it  is  to  be  stormed  and  taken  by  the  hosts  of 
legislative  piety,  yet  on  it  goes,  upon  its  gilded  way— a 

590 


PASSIONATE  PALM  BEACH 

place,  it  should  be  said,  of  orderly,  spectacular  distinc- 
tion. The  Beach  Club  occupies  a  plain  white  house, 
low-spreading  and  unpretentious,  but  fitted  most  agree- 
ably within,  and  boasting  a  superb  cuisine.  Not  every 
one  is  admitted.  Members  have  cards,  and  must  be 
vouched  for,  formally,  by  persons  known  to  those  who 
operate  the  place.  Many  of  the  quiet  pleasant  people 
who,  leading  their  own  lives  regardless  of  the  splurging 
going  on  about  them,  form  the  background  of  Palm 
Beach  life — much  as  "walking  ladies  and  gentlemen" 
form  the  crowd  in  a  spectacular  theatrical  production — 
have  never  seen  the  inside  of  the  Beach  Club ;  and  I  have 
little  doubt  that  many  visitors  who  drop  in  at  Palm 
Beach  for  a  few  days  never  so  much  as  hear  of  it.  It  is 
not  run  for  them,  nor  for  the  "piker,"  nor  for  the  needy 
clerk,  but  for  the  furious  spenders. 

Let  us  therefore  view  the  Beach  Club  only  as  an  in- 
teresting adjunct  to  Palm  Beach  life,  and  let  us  admit 
that,  as  such,  it  is  altogether  in  the  picture.  Let  us, 
in  short,  seek,  upon  this  brief  excursion,  not  only  to 
recover  from  our  case  of  grippe,  but  to  recover  also 
that  sense  of  the  purely  esthetic,  without  regard  to  moral 
issues,  which  we  used  to  enjoy  some  years  ago,  before 
our  legislatures  legislated  .virtue  into  us.  Let  us  soar, 
upon  the  wings  of  our  checkbook,  in  one  final  flight 
to  the  realms  of  unalloyed  beauty.  Let  us,  in  consider- 
ing this  most  extravagantly  passionate  and  passionately 
extravagant  of  American  resorts,  be  great  artists,  who 

591 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

are  above  morals.  Let  us  refuse  pointblank  to  consider 
morals  at  all.  For  by  so  doing  we  may  avoid  gi\ing 
ourselves  away. 

The  season  wanes.  Crowds  on  the  beach  grow  thin- 
ner. Millionaires  begin  to  move  their  private  cars  from 
Palm  Beach  sidings,  and  depart  for  other  fashionable 
places  farther  north.  Croupiers  at  the  Beach  Clul) 
stand  idle  for  an  hour  at  a  time,  though  ready  to  spin  the 
wheel,  invitingly,  for  any  one  who  saunters  in.  The 
shops  hold  cut-price  sales.  And  we,  regarding  some- 
what sadly  our  white  trousers,  perceive  that  there  does 
not  remain  a  single  spotless  pair.  The  girl  in  Mr.  Fos- 
ter's fruit  store  has  more  leisure,  now,  and  smiles  agree- 
ably as  we  pass  upon  our  way  to  the  hotel  dining-room. 
The  waiter,  likewise,  is  not  pressed  for  time. 

"They  was  seven-hunduhd  an'  twe've  folks  heah  yes- 
tahday,"  he  says,  "On'y  six-fohty-three  to-day.  Ah 
reckon  they  a-goin'  t'  close  the  Breakuhs  day  aftuh  t'- 
mo'w." 

Still  the  flowers  bloom ;  still  the  place  is  beautiful ;  still 
the  weather  is  not  uncomfortably  warm.  Nevertheless 
the  season  dies.     And  so  it  comes  about  that  we  depart. 

The  ride  through  Florida  is  tedious.  The  miles  of 
palmettoes,  with  leaves  glittering  like  racks  of  bared  cut- 
lasses in  the  sun,  the  miles  of  dark  swamp,  in  which  the 
cypresses  seem  to  wade  like  dismal  club-footed  men,  the 
miles  of  live-oak  strung  with  their  sad  tattered  curtains 
of  Spanish  moss,  the  miles  of  sandy  waste,  of  pineapple 

592 


PASSIONATE  PALM  BEACH 

and  orange  groves,  of  pines  with  feathery  pahn-Hke  tops, 
above  aU  the  sifting  of  fine  Florida  dust,  which  covers 
everything  inside  the  car  as  with  a  coat  of  flour — these 
make  you  wish  that  you  were  North  again. 

The  train  stops  at  a  station.  You  get  off  to  walk 
upon  the  platform.  The  row  of  hackmen  and  hotel  por- 
ters stand  there,  in  gloomy  silent  defiance  of  the  rapidly 
approaching  end  of  things,  each  holding  a  sign  bearing 
the  name  of  some  hotel.  In  another  week  the  railway 
company  may,  if  it  wishes,  lift  the  ban  on  shouting  hotel 
runners.  Let  them  shout.  There  will  be  nobody  to 
hear. 

You  buy  a  newspaper. 

Ah !  What  is  this  ?  "Great  Blizzard  in  New  York — 
Trains  Late — Wires  Down." 

You  know  what  New  York  blizzards  are.  You  pic- 
ture the  scenes  being  enacted  there  to-day.  You  see  the 
icy  streets  with  horses  falling  down.  You  see  cyclonic 
clouds  of  snow  whirl  savagely  around  the  corners  of 
high  buildings,  pelting  the  homegoing  hoards,  whirling 
them  about,  throwing  women  down  upon  street  cross- 
ings. You  have  a  vision  of  the  muddy,  slushy  subway 
steps,  and  slimy  platforms,  packed  with  people,  their 
clothing  caked  with  wet  white  spangles.  You  see  them 
wedged,  cross  and  damp,  into  the  trains,  and  hear  them 
coughing  into  one  another's  necks.  You  see  emaciated 
tramps,  pausing  to  gaze  wanly  into  bakery  windows: 
men  without  overcoats,  their  collars  turned  up,  their 
hands  deep  in  the  pockets  of  their  trousers,  their  heads 

593' 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

bent  against  the  storm;  you  see  them  walk  on  to 
keep  from  freezing.  You  remember  Roscoe  Conkling. 
That  sort  of  thing  can  happen  in  a  New  York  blizzard! 
Little  tattered  newsboys,  thinly  clad,  will  die  to-night 
upon  cold  corners.  Poor  widows,  lacking  money  to  buy 
coal,  are  shuddering  even  now  in  squalid  tenements,  and 
covering  their  wailing  little  ones  with  shoddy  blankets. 

"Horrible!"  you  say,  sighing  upon  the  balmy  air. 
Then,  with  the  sweetly  resigned  philosophy  of  Palm 
Beach,  you  add: 

"Oh,  well,  what  does  it  matter?  /  'in  in  Florida  any- 
how.    After  all  it  is  a  pretty  good  old  world!" 


594 


CHAPTER  LIV 
ASSORTED  AND  RESORTED  FLORIDA 

"Some  year  or  more  ago,  I  s'pose, 
I  roamed  from  Maine  to  Floridy, 
And, — see  where  them  Pahnettoes  grows? 
I  bought  that  little  key  .  .  ." 

—  Sidney  Lanier   ("A  Florida  Ghost.'') 

FLORIDA  in  winter  comes  near  to  being  all  things 
to  all  men.  To  all  she  offers  amusement  plus 
her  climate,  and  in  no  one  section  is  the  con- 
trast in  what  amusement  constitutes,  and  costs,  set  forth 
more  sharply  than  where,  on  the  west  coast  of  the  State, 
Belleair  and  St.  Petersburg  are  situated,  side  by  side. 

The  Hotel  Belleview  at  Belleair  compares  favorably 
with  any  in  the  State,  and  is  peopled,  during  the  cold 
months,  with  affluent  golf  maniacs,  for  whom  two  fine 
courses  have  been  laid  out. 

When  the  pipes  supplying  water  for  the  greens  of 
his  home  course,  at  Brook,  Indiana,  freeze,  annually, 
George  Ade,  for  instance,  knows  that,  instead  of  hiber- 
nating, it  is  time  for  him  to  take  his  white  flannel  suits, 
hang  them  on  the  clothesline  in  the  back  yard  until  the 
fragrance  of  the  moth-ball  has  departed,  pack  them  in 
his  wardrobe  trunk,  and  take  his  winter  flight  to  the 
Belleview.     He  knows  that,  at  the  Belleview,  he  will 

595 


AMERICAN  ADVP:XTURES 

meet  hundreds  of  men  and  women  who  are  suffering 
from  the  malady  with  which  he  is  afflicted. 

The  conversation  at  Uelleair  is,  so  far  as  my  com- 
panion and  I  could  learn,  confined  entirely  to  compari- 
sons between  different  courses,  different  kinds  of  clubs 
and  balls,  and  different  scores.  Belleair  turns  uj)  its 
nose  at  Palm  Beach.  It  considers  the  game  of  golf  as 
played  at  Palm  Beach  a  trifling  game,  and  it  feels  thai 
the  winter  population  of  Palm  Beach  wastes  a  lot  of 
time  talking  about  clothes  and  the  stock  market  when  it 
might  be  discussing  cleeks,  midirons,  and  mashies. 
The  woman  who  thinks  it  essential  to  be  blond  whether 
she  is  blond  or  not,  and  who  regards  Forty-second 
Street  as  the  axle  upon  which  the  universe  turns,  would 
be  likely  to  die  of  ennui  in  a  w-eek  at  Belleair,  whereas, 
in  Palm  Beach,  if  she  died  in  that  time,  it  would  prol)- 
ably  be  of  delight — with  a  possibility  of  alcoholism  as  a 
contributing  cause.  And  likewise,  though  Belleair  has 
plutocrats  in  abundance,  they  are  not  starred  for  their 
wealth,  as  are  the  Palm  Beach  millionaires,  nor  yet  for 
their  social  position,  but  are  rated  strictly  according  to 
their  club  handicap.  Hence  it  happens  that  if,  speak- 
ing of  a  Palm  Beach  millionaire,  you  ask:  "How  did 
he  make  it?"  you  will  be  told  the  story  of  some  combine 
of  trusts,  some  political  grafting,  or  some  widely  adver- 
tised patent  medicine ;  but  if  you  ask  in  Belleair :  "How 
did  he  make  it?"  the  answer  is  likely  to  be:  "He  made 
it  in  4,  with  a  cleek." 

Consider  on  the  other  hand,  St.  Petersburg,  with  its 

596 


ASSORTED  AND  RESORTED  FLORIDA 

cheap  hotels,  its  boarding  houses,  its  lunch  rooms  and 
cafeterias,  and  its  winter  population  of  farmers  and 
their  wives  from  the  North.  The  people  you  see  in  St. 
Petersburg  are  identical  with  those  you  might  see  on 
market  day  in  a  county  town  of  Ohio  or  Indiana.  Sev- 
eral thousands  of  them  come  annually  from  several 
dozen  States,  and  many  a  family  of  them  lives  through 
the  winter  comfortably  on  less  than  some  other  families 
spend  at  Belleair  in  a  week,  or  at  Palm  Beach  in  a  day. 

If  I  am  any  judge  of  the  signs  of  happiness,  there 
is  plenty  of  it  in  the  hearts  of  those  who  win- 
ter at  St.  Petersburg.  The  city  park  is  full  of  contented 
people,  most  of  them  middle-aged  or  old.  The  women 
listen  to  the  band,  and  the  men  play  checkers  under  the 
palmetto-thatched  shelter,  or  toss  horseshoes  on  the 
greensward,  at  the  sign  of  the  Sunshine  Pleasure  Club 
— an  occupation  which  is  St.  Petersburg's  equivalent 
for  Palm  Beach's  game  of  tossing  chips  on  the  green- 
topped  tables  of  a  gambling  house.     And  yet — 

Is  it  always  pleasant  to  be  virtuous?  Is  it  always  de- 
lightful to  be  where  pious  people,  naive  people,  people 
who  love  simple  pastimes,  are  enjoying  themselves?  I 
am  reminded  of  a  talk  I  had  with  a  negro  whose  strong 
legs  turned  the  pedals  of  a  wheel  chair  in  which  my  com- 
panion and  I  rode  one  day  through  the  Palm  Beach 
jungle  trail.  It  is  a  wonderful  place,  that  jungle,  with 
its  tangled  trunks  and  vines  and  its  green  foliage  swim- 
ming in  sifted  sunlight ;  with  its  palms,  palmettoes,  ferns, 
and  climbing  morning-glories,  its  banana  trees,  gnarled 

597 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

rubber  banyans,  and  wild  mangoes — which  are  Hke 
trees  growing  upside  down,  digging  their  spreading 
branches  into  the  ground.  For  a  time  we  forgot  the 
pedahng  negro  behind  us,  but  a  faint  pufling  sound  on  a 
sHght  up-grade  reminded  us,  presently,  that  our  party 
was  not  of  two,  but  three.  When  the  chair  was  running 
free  again,  one  of  us  inquired  of  the  chairman: 

''What  would  you  do  if  you  had  a  million  dollars?" 

"Well,  boss,"  replied  the  negro  seriously,  '*Ah  knows 
one  thing  Ah  'd  do.  No  mattuh  how  much  o'  dis  worl's 
goods  Ah  haid,  Ah  'd  alius  get  mah  exuhcize." 

"That 's  wise,"  my  companion  replied.  "What  kind 
of  exercise  would  you  take  ?" 

"Ah  ain't  nevvuh  jest  stedied  dat  out,  boss,"  re- 
turned the  man.  "But  it  sho'  would  be  some  kind  o' 
exuhcize  besides  pushin'  one  o'  dese-heah  chaihs." 

"When  you  were  n't  exercising  would  you  go  and 
have  a  good  time?" 

"No,  boss." 

"Why  not?" 

"Well,  boss,  y'  see  Ah  's  a  'ligious  man.  Ah  is." 

"But  can't  people  w'ho  are  religious  have  a  good 
time?" 

"Oh,"  said  the  negro,  "dey  might  have  deh  little 
pleasuhs  now  an'  den,  but  dey  cain't  hev  no  sich  good 
times  like  othah  folks  kin.  A  man  't  's  a  'ligious  man, 
he  cain't  hev  no  sich  good  times  like  IMistuh  Wahtuh- 
be'y's  an'  dem  folks  'at  w^as  heah  up  to  laist  week.  Ah 
was  Mistuh  W^ahtuhbe'y's  chaih  boy.     He  gimme  ninety- 

598 


ASSORTED  AND  RESORTED  FLORIDA 

two  dollahs  an'  fifty  cents  tips  one  week!  Yassuh! 
Dat  might  be  cha'ity  but 't  ain't  'ligion.  Mistuh  Dodge, 
his  chaih  boy 's  been  a-wohkin'  foh  'im  six  weeks. 
I  'spec'  Mistuh  Dodge  give  dat  boy  fahve  hund'ud  dol- 
lahs if  he  give  'im  a  cent!  Mistuh  Wahtuhbe'y's  pahty, 
dey  haid  nineteen  chaihs  waitin'  on  'em  all  de  time,  jest 
foh  t'  drive  'em  f 'om  de  /^o-tel  to  de  club,  an'  de  casino. 
Dat  cos'  'em  nineteen  hund'ud  dollahs  a  week,  and  de 
boys,  dey  ain't  one  o'em  'at  git  less'n  hund'ud  dolluhs 
fo'  hisself.  Dat 's  de  kin'  o'  gen'men  Mistuh  Wahtuh- 
be'y  an'  his  pahty  is.  Ah  's  haid  sev'ul  gen'men  dis 
season  dat  ain't  what  you  'd  jes'  say,  'ligious,  but  dey 
was,  as  folks  calls  it,  p'ofuse.  Dey  was  one  ol'  gen'man 
heah  two  weeks,  an'  deh  was  a  young  lady  what  he  haid 
a  attachment  on,  an'  evvy  evenin'  'e  use'  t'  take  huh  foh 
a  wheel-chaih  ride  in  de  moonlight.  Fuhst  night  Ah 
took  'em  out  he  tuhn  to  me,  an'  he  says :  'Look-a-heah, 
boy !     You  sho  you  knows  youah  duties  ?' 

"  'Yassuh,  boss,'  Ah  tell  'im.     'Deed  Ah  does!' 
"  'Den  what  is  youah  duties  den  ?'  sez  'e. 
"Ah  say:     'Boss,  de  chaih  boy's  duties,  dey 's  to  be 
dumb,  an'  deef,  an'  blin',  an'  dey  cain't  see  nothin',  an' 
dey  cain't  say  nothin',  an'  dey  cain't  heah  nothin',  and 
dey  cain't — ' 

"  'Dass  'nuff,'  he  say.     'Ah  sees  you  knows  youah 
business.     Heah  's  fiffy  dollahs.'  " 

"Well,"  one  of  us  asked  presently,  "what  happened?" 
"Ah  took  'em  ridin'  through  de  jungle  trail,  boss,"  he 
returned,  innocently. 

599 


AMERICAN  AD\  i:.\rLRES 

"What  did  they  do?" 

"How  does  Ah  know,  boss?  Di'n'  Ah  have  ma  eyes 
coviihed  wi'  dat  fiffy  dollahs?  Di'n'  Ah  have  ma  eahs 
stuff  wid  it?  Yassuh!  An'  Ah  got  ma  nioiif  full  o' 
it  yif!" 

The  chair  Ijoys,  bell  boys,  waiters,  barbers,  porters, 
bartenders,  waitr'^sses,  chambermaids,  manicures,  and 
shop  attendants  one  finds  in  Palm  Beach,  Belleair,  Mi- 
ami, and  many  other  winter  resorts,  are,  numerically, 
a  not  inconsiderable  part  of  the  season's  population,  and 
the  lives  of  these  people  who  form  a  background  of  serv- 
ice, of  which  many  an  afllucnt  visitor  is  hardly  con- 
scious, parallel  the  lives  of  the  rich  in  a  manner  that  is 
not  without  a  note  of  caricature. 

When  the  rich  go  South  so  do  the  hordes  that  serve 
them;  when  the  Florida  season  begins  to  close  and  the 
rich  move  northward,  the  serving  population  likewise 
begins  to  melt  away ;  if  you  are  in  Palm  Beach  near  the 
season's  end,  and  move  up  to  St.  Augustine,  or  Jack- 
sonville, or  Augusta,  or  any  one  of  a  dozen  other  places, 
you  are  likely  to  recognize,  here  and  there,  a  waiter,  a 
bell-boy,  or  a  chambermaid  whom  you  tipped,  some 
weeks  earlier,  preparatory  to  leaving  a  latitude  several 
degrees  nearer  the  Equator.  When  you  leave  the  Poin- 
ciana  or  the  Breakers  at  the  season's  close,  your  waiter 
may,  for  all  you  know,  be  in  the  Jim  Crow  car,  ahead, 
and  when  you  go  in  to  dinner  at  the  Ponce  de  Leon  at 
St.  Augustine,  or  the  Mason  at  Jacksonville,  you  may 
discover  that  he  too  has  stopped  off  there  for  a  few 

600 


ASSORTED  AND  RESORTED  FLORIDA 

days,  to  gather  in  the  final  tips.  Nor  must  you  fancy, 
when  you  depart  for  the  North,  that  you  have  seen  the 
last  of  him.  Next  summer  when  you  take  a  boat  up  the 
Hudson,  or  go  to  Boston  by  the  Fall  River  Line,  or  drop 
in  at  a  hotel  at  Saratoga,  there  he  will  be,  like  an  old 
friend.  The  bartender  who  mixes  you  a  pick-me-up  on 
the  morning  that  you  leave  the  Breakers,  will  be  ready 
to  start  you  on  the  downward  path,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  summer,  at  some  Northern  country  club ;  the  barber 
who  cuts  your  hair  at  the  Royal  Palm  in  Miami  will  be 
ready  to  perform  a  like  service,  later  on,  at  some 
hotel  in  the  Adirondacks  or  the  White  Mountains; 
the  neat  waitress  who  serves  you  at  the  Belleview  at 
Belleair  will  appear  before  you  three  or  four  months 
hence  at  the  Griswold  near  New  London;  the  adept 
waiter  from  the  Beach  Club  at  Palm  Beach  will 
seem  to  you  to  look  like  some  one  you  have  seen  be- 
fore when,  presently,  he  places  viands  before  you  at 
Sherry's,  or  the  Ritz,  or  some  fashionable  restaurant  in 
London  or  Paris.  Likewise,  when  you  enter  the  barber 
shop  of  a  large  hostelry  just  off  the  board  walk  in  At- 
lantic City,  next  July,  you  will  find  there,  in  the  same 
generously  ventilated  shirt  waist,  the  manicurist  who 
caused  your  nails  to  glisten  so  superbly  in  the  Florida 
sunlight;  and  if  she  has  the  memory  for  faces  which  is 
no  small  part  of  a  successful  manicurist's  stock  in  trade, 
she  will  remember  you,  and  where  she  saw  you  last,  and 
will  tell  you  just  which  of  the  young  women  from  ''The 
Follies"  and  the  Century  Theater  are  to  be  seen  upon 

60 1 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

the  beach  that  day,  and  whether  they  arc  wearing,  here 
on  the  Jersey  coast,  those  same  surprising  bathing  suits 
which,  last  February,  caused  blase  gentlemen  basking 
upon  the  Florida  sands  to  sit  up,  arise,  say  it  w^as  time 
for  one  last  dip  before  luncheon,  and  then,  without  seem- 
ing too  deliberate  about  it,  follow  the  amazing  nymphs 
in  the  direction  of  a  matchless  sea — that  sea  which,  as  a 
background  for  these  Broadway  girls  in  their  long  silken 
hosiery,  takes  on  a  tone  of  spectacular  unreality,  like 
some  fantastic  marine  back  drop  devised  by  Mr.  Dilling- 
ham or  Mr.  Ziegfeld. 


602 


CHAPTER  LV 
A  DAY  IN  MONTGOMERY 

I  have  walk  'd  in  Alabama 
My  morning  walk  .  .  . 

— Walt  Whitman. 

AS  I  have  remarked  before,  it  is  a  long  haul  from 
the  peninsula  of  Florida  to  New  Orleans. 
There  are  two  ways  to  go.  The  route  by  way 
of  Pensacola,  following  the  Gulf  Coast,  looks  shorter  on 
the  map  but  is,  I  believe,  in  point  of  time  consumed,  the 
longer  way.  My  companion  and  I  were  advised  to  go 
by  way  of  Montgomery,  Alabama — a  long  way  around 
it  looked — where  we  were  to  change  trains,  catching  a 
New  Orleans-bound  express  from  the  North. 

It  was  nearly  midnight  when,  after  a  long  tiresome 
journey,  we  arrived  in  Alabama's  capital,  and  after 
midnight  when  we  reached  the  comfortable  if  curiously 
called  Hotel  Gay-Teague,  which  is  not  named  for  an 
Indian  chief  or  a  kissing  game,  but  for  two  men  who 
had  to  do  with  building  it. 

We  had  heard  that  Montgomery  was  a  quiet,  sleepy 
old  town,  and  had  expected  to  go  immediately  to  bed  on 
our  arrival.  What  then  was  our  amazement  at  hear- 
ing, echoing  through  the  wide  street  in  front  of  the 

603 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

hotel,  the  sound  of  strident  ragtime.  Investigation  dis- 
closed a  gaudily  striped  tent  of  considerable  size  set  up 
in  the  street  and  illuminated  by  those  flaring  naphtha 
lamps  they  use  in  circuses.  Going  over  to  the  tent,  we 
learned  that  there  was  dancing  within,  whereupon  we 
paid  our  fifteen  cents  apiece  and  entered.  I  have  for- 
gotten what  produced  the  music — it  may  have  been  a 
mechanical  piano  or  a  hurdy-gurdy — but  there  was 
music,  and  it  was  loud,  and  there  was  a  platform  laid 
over  the  cobble-stones  of  the  street,  and  on  that  plat- 
form ten  or  more  couples  were  "ragging,"  their  shoul- 
ders working  like  the  walking  beams  of  side-wheelers. 
The  men  w^ere  of  that  nondescript  type  one  would  ex- 
pect to  see  in  a  fifteen-cent  dancing  place,  but  the  women 
were  of  curious  appearance,  for  all  were  dressed  alike, 
the  costume  being  a  fringed  khaki  suit  with  knee-length 
skirt,  a  bandana  at  the  neck,  and  a  sombrero.  On  in- 
quiry I  learned  that  this  was  called  a  "cowgirl"  cos- 
tume. The  dances  were  very  brief,  and  in  the  in- 
tervals betw^een  them  most  of  the  dancers  went  to 
a  "bar"  at  the  end  of  the  tent  where  (Alabama 
being  a  dry  State)  the  beverage  called  "coca-cola" — a 
habit  as  much  as  a  drink — was  being  served  in  whisky 
glasses. 

Unable  to  understand  why  this  pageant  of  supposed 
w^estern  mining-camp  life  should  confront  us  in  the 
streets  of  Alabama's  capital,  T  made  inquiry  of  an  ami- 
al)le  policeman  w^ho  was  on  duty  in  the  tent,  and  learned 
that  this  was  not  a  regular  Montgomery  institution,  but 

604 


A  DAY  IN  MONTGOMERY 

one  of  the  attractions  of  a  street  fair  which  had  invaded 
the  city — the  main  body  of  the  fair  being  a  block  or  two 
distant. 

These  fairs,  he  said,  travel  about  the  country  much 
as  circuses  do,  making  arrangements  in  advance  with 
various  organizations  in  different  places  to  stand  spon- 
sor for  them. 

Long  after  we  were  in  our  beds  that  night  we  were 
kept  awake  by  the  sound  of  ragtime  from  the  tent  across 
the  way.  I  arose  next  morning  with  the  feeling  of  one 
who  has  had  insufficient  sleep,  and  a  glance  at  my  com- 
panion, who  was  already  at  table  when  I  reached  the 
hotel  dining  room,  informed  me  that  he  was  suffering 
from  a  like  complaint.  I  took  my  seat  opposite  him  in 
silence,  and  he  acknowledged  my  presence  with  a  nod 
which  he  accomplished  without  looking  up  from  his 
newspaper. 

After  breakfast  there  arrived  a  pleasant  gentleman 
who  announced  himself  as  secretary  of  one  of  the  city's 
commercial  organizations. 

"We  have  a  motor  here,"  said  the  secretary,  "and  will 
show  you  points  of  interest.  Is  there  anything  in  par- 
ticular you  wish  to  see?" 

"I  think,"  said  my  companion,  "that  it  would  be  a 
good  thing  to  see  the  street  fair." 

"Oh,  no,"  said  the  secretary  earnestly.  "You  don't 
want  to  see  that.  There  is  nothing  about  it  that  is  rep- 
resentative of  Montgomery.  It  is  just  a  traveling  show 
such  as  you  might  run  into  anywhere." 

605 


AMERICAN  ADXEXTURES 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "but  we  never  hair  run  into  one  be- 
fore, and  here  it  is." 

"I  have  said  right  along-,"  declared  the  secretary, 
somberly,  ''that  it  was  a  great  mistake  to  bring  this  fair 
here  at  all.  I  don't  think  you  ought  to  pay  any  attention 
to  it  in  your  l)ook.  It  will  give  ])cople  a  wrong  im- 
pression of  our  city." 

"Do  you  think  it  will,  if  T  explain  that  it  is  just  a 
traveling  fair?" 

"Yes.  Wait  until  you  see  what  we  have  to  show  you. 
We  want  you  to  understand  that  Montgomery  is  a  thriv- 
ing metropolis,  sir!" 

"What  is  there  to  see?" 

"Montgomery,"  he  replied,  "is  known  as  'The  City  of 
Sunshine.'  It  is  rich  in  history.  It  has  superior  hotels, 
picturesque  highways,  good  fishing  and  hunting,  two 
golf  courses,  seven  theaters,  a  number  of  tennis  courts, 
and  unsurpassed  artesian  water.  It  has  free  factory 
sites,  the  cheapest  electric  power  rates  in  the  United 
States,  and  is  the  best-lighted  city  in  the  country." 

"We  have  some  pretty  fair  street  lighting  in  New 
York,"  interjected  my  companion,  who  takes  much  pride 
in  his  home  town. 

"I  said  'one  of  the  best  lighted,'  "  replied  the  secre- 
tary. 

"What  is  the  population?" 

"Montgomery,"  the  other  returned,  "is  typical  of 
both  the  Old  and  the  New  South.  Though  it  may  be 
called  a  modern  model  city,  its  wealth  of  history  and 

606 


A  DAY  IN  MONTGOMERY 

tradition  are  preserved  with  loving  care  by  its  myriad 
inhabitants." 

"How  many  inhabitants?" 

"Roses  and  other  flowers  are  in  bloom  here  through- 
out the  year,"  said  he.  "Also  there  are  six  hundred 
miles  of  macadamized  and  picturesque  highways  in 
Montgomery  County.  Indeed,  this  region  is  a  motor- 
ist's paradise." 

"How  many  people  did  you  say?" 

"Montgomery,"  he  answered,  "is  the  trading  center 
for  a  million  prosperous  souls." 

At  this  my  companion,  who  had  been  reading  up 
Montgomery  in  a  guidebook,  began  to  bristle  with  hid- 
den knowledge. 

"You  say  there  are  a  million  people  here?"  he  de- 
manded. 

"Not  right  here,"  admitted  the  secretary. 

"Well,  how  many  do  you  claim?" 

"Fifty-five  thousand  four  hundred  and  ten." 

"Right  in  the  city  ?" 

"Well,  in  the  trolley-car  territory." 

"But  in  the  city  itself?"  my  companion  insisted. 

The  secretary  was  fairly  cornered.  "The  19 lo  cen- 
sus," he  said,  with  a  smile,  "gave  us  about  forty  thou- 
sand." 

"Thirty-eight  thousand  one  hundred  and  thirty-six," 
corrected  my  companion.  He  had  not  spent  hours  with 
the  guidebook  for  nothing. 

When,  presently,  we  got  into  the  automobile,  I  gave 

607 


AMERICAN  An\'KXTURES 

another  feeble  chirp  about  the  fair,  but  the  secretary 
was  adamant,  so  we  yielded  temporarily,  and  were 
whirled  about  the  city. 

Montgomery  is  a  charming  old  town,  not  only  by 
reason  of  the  definite  things  it  has  to  show,  but  also  be- 
cause of  a  general  rich  suggestion  of  old  southern 
life. 

The  day,  l^y  a  fortunate  chance,  was  Saturday,  and 
ex'cry where  we  went  we  encountered  negroes  dri\ing  in 
from  the  country  to  market,  in  their  rickety  old  wagons. 
On  some  wagons  there  would  be  four  or  five  men  and 
women,  and  here  and  there  one  would  be  playing  a 
musical  instrument  and  they  would  all  be  singing,  while 
the  creaking  of  the  wagon  came  in  with  an  orches- 
tral quality  which  seemed  grotesquely  suitable.  The 
mules,  too,  looked  as  though  they  ought  to  creak,  and  an 
inspection  of  the  harness  suggested  that  it  was  held  to- 
gether, not  so  much  by  the  string  and  wire  with  which 
it  was  mended,  as  by  the  fingers  of  that  especial  Provi- 
dence which  watches  over  all  kinds  of  absurd  repairs 
made  by  negroes,  and  makes  them  hold  for  negroes, 
where  they  would  not  hold  for  white  men. 

In  an  old  buff-painted  brick  building  standing  on  the 
corner  of  Commerce  and  r)ibb  Streets,  the  Confederate 
Government  had  its  first  offices,  and  from  this  building, 
if  I  mistake  not,  was  sent  the  telegraphic  order  to  fire 
on  Fort  Sumter.  Another  historical  building  is  the 
dilapidated  frame  residence  at  the  corner  of  Bibb  and 

608 


A  DAY  IN  MONTGOMERY 

Lee  Streets,  which  was  the  first  "White  House  of  the 
Confederacy."  This  building  is  now  a  boarding  house, 
and  is  in  a  pathetic  state  of  decay.  But  perhaps  when 
Montgomery  gets  up  the  energy  to  build  a  fine  tourist 
hotel,  or  w^hen  outside  capital  comes  in  and  builds  one, 
the  old  house  will  be  furbished  up  to  provide  a  "sight" 
for  visitors. 

There  are  several  reasons  why  Montgomery  would 
be  a  good  place  for  a  large  wanter-resort  hotel,  and  if  I 
were  a  Montgomery  Vbooster"  I  should  give  less  thought 
to  free  factory  sites  than  to  building  up  the  town  as  a 
winter  stopping  place  for  tourists.  The  town  itself  is 
picturesque  and  attractive ;  as  to  railroads  it  is  well  situ- 
ated (albeit  the  claim  that  Montgomery  is  the  "Gateway 
to  Florida"  strikes 'me  as  a  little  bit  exaggerated) ;  the 
climate  is  delightful,  and  the  surrounding  country  is  not 
only  beautiful  but  fertile.  Furthermore,  there  are  al- 
ready two  golf  clubs — one  for  Jews  and  one  for  Gentiles 
— and  the  links  are  reputed  to  be  good. 

Unlike  many  southern  cities  of  moderate  size,  Mont- 
gomery has  well-paved  streets,  and  the  better  resi- 
dence streets,  being  wide,  and  lined  with  trees  and  pleas- 
ant houses,  each  in  its  own  law^n,  give  a  suggestion  of  an 
agreeable  home  and  social  life — a  suggestion  which,  by 
implication  at  least,  report  substantiates :  for  it  has  been 
said  that  the  chief  industry  of  Montgomery  is  that  of 
raising  beautiful  young  w^omen  to  make  wives  for  the 
rich  men  of  Birmingham. 

On    such    pleasant    thoroughfares    as    South    Perry 

609 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Street,  it  may  be  noticed  that  many  uf  the  newer  houses 
have  taken  their  architectural  inspiration  from  old  ones, 
with  the  result  that,  though  "originality"  does  not  jump 
out  at  the  passer-by,  as  it  does  on  so  many  streets,  North 
and  South,  which  are  lined  with  the  heterogeneous 
homes  of  prosperous  families,  there  is  an  agreeable 
architectural  harmony  over  the  town. 

This  is  not,  of  course,  invariably  true,  l)ut  it  is  truer, 
I  think,  in  Montgomery  than  in  most  other  cities,  and 
if  Alontgomery  is  defaced  by  the  funny  little  settlement 
called  Bungalow  City,  that  settlement  is,  at  least,  upon 
the  outskirts  of  the  town.  Bungalow  City  is  without 
exception  the  queerest  real-estate  development  I  ever 
saw.  It  consists  of  several  blocks  of  tiny  houses,  stand- 
ing on  tiny  lots,  the  scale  of  everything  being  so  small 
as  to  suggest  a  play  village  for  children.  The  houses 
are,  however,  homes,  and  I  was  told  that  in  some  of 
them  all  sorts  of  curious  space-saving  devices  are  in- 
stalled— as,  for  instance,  tables  and  beds  which  can  be 
folded  into  the  walls.  Not  far  from  this  little  settlement 
is  an  old  house  which  used  to  be  the  home  of  Tweed, 
New  York's  notorious  political  boss,  who,  it  is  said, 
used  to  spend  much  time  here. 

The  chief  lion  of  the  city  is  the  old  State  House,  which 
stands  on  a  graceful  eminence  in  a  small  well-kept  park. 
Just  as  the  New  York  State  Capitol  is  probably  the  most 
shamefully  expensive  structure  of  the  kind  in  the  entire 
country,  that  of  Alabama  is,  T  fancy,  the  most  credit- 
ably inexpensive.     Building  and  grounds  cost  $335,000. 

610 


A  DAY  IN  MONTGOMERY 

Moreover,  the  Capitol  of  Alabama  is  a  better-looking 
building  than  that  of  New  York,  for  it  is  without  ginger- 
bread trimmings,  and  has  about  it  the  air  of  honest  sim- 
plicity that  an  American  State  House  ought  to  have.  Of 
course  it  has  a  dome,  and  of  course  it  has  a  columned 
portico,  but  both  are  plain,  and  there  is  a  large  clock,  in 
a  quaint  box-like  tower,  over  the  peak  of  the  portico, 
which  contributes  to  the  building  a  curious  touch  of  in- 
dividuality. At  the  center  of  the  portico  floor,  under 
this  clock,  a  brass  plate  marks  the  spot  where  Jefferson 
Davis  stood  when  he  delivered  his  inaugural  address, 
February  i8,  1861,  and  in  the  State  Senate  Chamber, 
within — a  fine  simple  room  with  a  gallery  of  peculiar 
grace — the  Provisional  Government  of  the  Confederacy 
was  organized.  The  flag  of  the  Confederacy  was,  I  be- 
lieve, adopted  in  this  room,  and  was  first  flung  to  the 
breeze  from  the  Capitol  building. 

It  was  past  three  in  the  afternoon  when  we  left  the 
State  House,  and  we  had  had  no  luncheon. 

"Now,"  said  my  companion  as  we  returned  to  the 
automobile,  'T  think  we  had  better  have  something  to 
eat,  and  then  go  to  the  fair." 

*'But  you  were  going  to  give  up  the  fair,"  put  in  the 
secretary. 

''Oh,  no,"  we  said  in  chorus. 

'T  have  arranged  about  luncheon,"  he  returned. 
''We  will  have  it  served  at  the  hotel  in  a  short  time. 
But  first  there  are  some  important  sights  I  wish  you  to 
see." 

611 


AMERICAN  ADXICN  ri'Ki:S 

**Mcin  shall  imt  H\c  l>y  sighls  alone,"  objcclcd  my  cuni- 
paniun.     "What  arc  yen  i^oiiii;  lo  show  us."" 

"We  have  a  beautiful  woman's  college." 

"That,"  said  my  companion,  "is  the  one  thini(  that 
could  tem])t  me.  How  many  beautiful  women  are 
there?" 

"It  's  not  the  women — it  "s  the  l)uilding',"  the  secretary 
explained. 

"Then,"  said  my  companion  firmly,  "1  think  we  'd  bet- 
ter go  and  have  our  lunch." 

It  seemed  to  me  time  to  back  him  up  in  this  demand. 
I'y  dint  of  considerable  insistence  we  persuaded  our  en- 
thusiastic cicerone  to  drive  to  the  hotel,  where  we  found 
a  table  already  set  for  us. 

"I  want  to  tell  you,"  said  the  secretary  as  we  sat 
dow^n,  "about  the  agricultural  progress  this  section  has 
been  making.  Until  recently  our  farmers  raised  noth- 
ing but  cotton ;  they  did  n't  even  feed  themselves,  but 
Hved  largely  on  canned  goods.  But  the  boll  weevil  and 
the  European  War,  a  fleeting  the  cotton  crop  and  the 
cotton  market  as  they  did,  forced  the  farmers  to  wake 

The  secretary  talked  interestingly  on  this  subject  for 
perhaps  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  during  which  time  we 
waited  for  luncheon  to  be  served. 

"You  see,"  he  said,  "our  climate  is  such  that  it  is  pos- 
sible to  rotate  crops  more  than  in  most  parts  of  the 
country.     Cotton  is  now  a  surplus  crop  with  us,  and  our 

612 


Harness  held  together  by  that  especial  Providence  which  watches  over  negro 

mendings 


A  DAY  IN  MONTGOMERY 

farmers  are  raising  cattle,  vegetables,  and  food  pro- 
ducts." 

"Speaking  of  food  products,"  said  my  companion,  "I 
wonder  if  we  could  hurry  up  the  lunch?" 

*'It  will  be  along  in  a  little  while,"  soothed  the  secre- 
tary.    Then  he  returned  to  agriculture. 

Ten  minutes  more  passed.  I  saw  that  my  companion 
was  becoming  nervous. 

*'I  'm  sorry  to  trouble  you,"  he  said  at  last,  "but  if  we 
can't  speed  up  this  luncheon,  I  don't  see  how  I  can  wait. 
You  see,  we  are  leaving  town  this  evening,  and  I  have 
an  awful  lot  to  do." 

'T  '11  step  back  and  investigate,"  the  secretary  said, 
rising  and  moving  toward  the  kitchen  door. 

When  he  was  out  of  hearing,  my  companion  leaned 
toward  me. 

'T  suspect  this  fellow !"  he  said. 

"What  of?" 

"I  think  he  's  delaying  us  on  purpose.  He  's  a  nice 
chap,  but  it 's  his  business  to  boost  this  town,  and  he  's 
artful.  He  does  n't  want  us  to  see  the  street  fair. 
That 's  why  he  's  stalling  like  this !" 

Now,  however,  the  secretary  returned,  followed  by  a 
waiter  bearing  soup. 

The  soup  was  fine,  but  it  was  succeeded  by  another 
long  interval,  during  which  the  secretary  said  some 
very,  very  beautiful  things  about  the  charm  of  Mont- 
gomery life.     However,  it  was  clear  to  me  that  my  com- 

613 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

panion  was  not  interested.  After  he  had  looked  at  his 
watch  several  times,  and  drummed  a  long  tattoo  upon 
the  table,  he  arose,  declaring: 

"I  can't  wait  another  minute." 

"Sit  down,  my  dear  fellow,"  said  the  secretary  in  his 
most  genial  tone.  "I  am  having  some  special  south- 
ern dishes  prepared  for  you." 

"You  're  very  kind,"  said  my  companion,  "but  I  must 
get  to  work.  It 's  half-past  four  now ;  we  are  leaving 
in  a  few  hours.  It  will  take  me  an  hour  to  make  my 
sketches,  and  the  light  will  be  failing  pretty  soon." 

"What  are  you  going  to  sketch?"  It  seemed  to  me 
that  there  was  suppressed  emotion  in  the  secretary's 
voice  as  he  asked  the  question. 

"Why,  the  street  fair." 

"Surely,  you  're  not  going  to  draw  it  ?" 

"Why  not?" 

"It 's  not  representative  of  Montgomery.  You  ought 
to  do  something  representative!  What  pictures  have 
you  made  here  ?" 

"I  made  one  of  those  negroes  driving  in  to  market," 
said  my  companion,  "and  one  of  the  dancing  cowgirls 
in  the  tent  across  the  way — the  ones  who  kept  us  awake 
last  night." 

"My  God!"  cried  the  secretary,  turning  to  me.  "You 
intend  to  print  such  pictures  and  say  that  they  represent 
the  normal  life  of  this  city?" 

"No,  I  won't  say  anything  about  it." 

"But — "  the  secretary  arose  and  looked  wanly  at  the 

614 


A  DAY  IN  MONTGOMERY 

illustrator — "but  you  have  n't  drawn  any  of  our  pretty 
homes !  You  did  n't  draw  the  golf  clubs — not  either  one 
of  them !  You  did  n't  draw  the  State  House,  or  the 
Confederate  Monument,  or  the  Insane  Asylum,  or 
anything!" 

'1  have  n't  had  time." 

"Well,  you  have  time  now !  I  tell  you  what :  We  '11 
let  this  luncheon  go.  I  '11  take  you  to  the  top  of  our 
tallest  building,  and  you  can  draw  a  panoramic  bird's- 
eye  view  of  the  entire  city.     That  will  be  worth  while." 

My  companion  reached  out,  helped  himself  to  a  French 
roll,  and  put  it  in  his  pocket. 

"No,"  he  said.  "I  wdll  not  go  to  the  top  of  a  high 
building  with  you." 

"But  why  not?" 

"Because,"  he  replied,  "I  am  afraid  you  would  try  to 
push  me  off  the  roof  to  prevent  my  drawing  the  street 
fair." 

I  do  not  remember  that  the  secretary  denied  having 
harbored  such  a  plan.  At  all  events,  he  countermanded 
the  remainder  of  the  luncheon  order  and  departed  with 
us. 

At  the  entrance  of  an  office  building  he  made  one  final 
desperate  appeal:  "Just  come  up  to  the  top  floor  and 
see  the  view !" 

But  we  stood  firm,  and  he  continued  with  us  on  our 
way. 

The  fair  was  strung  along  both  sides  of  a  wide, 
cobbled  street.     It  was  really  a  very  jolly  fair,  with  the 

615 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

usual  lol  of  l)arkcrs  and  the  usual  gaping  crowd,  plus 
many  negroes,  who  stood  fascinated  before  the  highly 
colored  canvas  signs  outside  the  tents,  with  their  bizarre 
pictures  of  wild  animals,  snake  charmers,  "Nemo,  the 
Malay  Prince,"  and  "The  Cigarette  Fiend,"  pictured 
as  a  ghastly  emaciated  object  with  a  blue  comi)lexion, 
and  billed  as  ''Endorsed  by  the  Anti-Cigarette  League 
of  America."  I  wished  to  inquire  why  an  anti-cigarette 
league  should  indorse  a  cigarette  fiend,  but  lack  of  time 
compelled  us  to  press  on,  leaving  the  apparent  paradox 
unsolved. 

As  we  progressed  between  the  tents  and  the  booths 
with  their  catchpenny  "wheels  of  fortune,"  and  ring- 
tossing  enticements,  the  secretary  maintained  a  protest- 
ing silence. 

Near  the  end  of  the  block  we  stopped  to  listen  to  a 
particularly  vociferous  barker.  I  saw  my  companion 
take  his  pad  from  his  pocket  and  place  it  under  his 
arm,  while  he  sharpened  a  pencil. 

"Come!"  cried  the  secretary.  "Come  across  the 
square  and  let  me  show  you  our  beautiful  bronze  foun- 
tain.    Draw  that!" 

But  my  companion  was  already  beginning  to  sketch. 
He  was  drawing  the  barker  and  the  crowd. 

Meanwhile  an  expression  of  horror  came  into  the 
secretary's  face.  Looking  at  him,  I  became  conscience- 
stricken. 

"Come  away,"  I  said  gently,  taking  him  by  the  arm. 
"Don't  watch  him  draw.     He  draws  wonderfully,  but 

6i6 


It  was  a  very  jolly  fair,  with  the  usual  lot  of  barkers  and  the  usual  gaping  crowd 


A  DAY  IN  MONTGOMERY 

Art  for  Art's  sake  does  n't  appeal  to  you  just  now.  The 
better  he  draws  the  worse  it  will  make  you  feel.  Let  me 
get  your  mind  off  all  this.  Let  me  take  you  over  to  the 
autodrome,  where  we  can  see  Mr.  O.  K.  Hager  and  his 
beautiful  sister,  Miss  Olive  Hager,  the  'Two  Daredevil 
Motorcyclists,  in  the  Thrilling  Race  against  Death.' 
That  will  make  you  forget." 

"No,"  said  the  secretary,  shaking  his  head  with  a  de- 
spondency the  very  sight  of  which  made  me  sad;  "I  have 
letters  to  sign  at  the  office." 

"And  we  have  taken  up  your  whole  day !" 

"It  has  been  a  pleasure,"  he  said  kindly.  "There  is 
only  one  thing  that  worries  me.  Those  drawings  are 
not  going  to  represent  what  is  typical  of  Montgomery 
life.     Not  in  the  least !" 

There  arose  in  me  a  sudden  desire  to  comfort  him. 

"How  would  it  be,"  I  suggested,  "if  I  were  to  print 
that  statement  in  my  book?" 

He  looked  at  me  in  surprise. 

"But  you  couldn't  very  well  do  that,  could  you?" 

"Certainly,"  I  replied. 

His  face  brightened.  It  was  delightful  to  see  the 
change  come  over  him. 

"For  that  matter,"  I  went  on,  "I  might  say  even  more. 
I  could  say  that,  while  I  admire  my  companion  as  a  man, 
and  as  an  artist,  he  lacks  ingenuity  in  ordering  break- 
fast. He  always  reads  over  the  menu  and  then  orders 
a  baked  apple  and  scrambled  eggs  and  bacon.  "V\'ould 
you  like  me  to  attack  him  on  that  line  also?" 

617 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

"Oh,  no,"  said  the  secretary.  ''Nothing  of  that  kind. 
It 's  just  about  these  pictures.  They  are  n't  representa- 
tive.    If  you  '11  say  that,  I  '11  be  more  than  satisfied." 

Presently  we  parted. 

"Don't  forget!"  he  said  as  we  shook  hands  in  fare- 
well. 

And  I  have  not  forgotten.  Moreover,  to  give  full 
measure,  I  am  going  to  ask  the  printer  to  set  the  state- 
ment in  italics: 

TJie  drawings  accompanying  this  cJiaptcr  arc  not  rep- 
resentative of  what  is  typical  of  Montgomery  life. 

With  this  statement  my  companion  is  in  full  accord. 
He  admits  that  he  would  have  drawn  the  State  House 
had  there  been  no  fair,  to  interfere.  But,  as  with  cer- 
tain items  on  the  breakfast  bill,  street  fairs  are  a  passion 
with  him.     And  so  they  are  with  me. 


6i8 


CHAPTER  LVI 
THE  CITY  OF  THE  CREOLE 

WHEN  a  poet,  a  painter,  or  a  sculptor  wishes 
to  personify  a  city,  why  does  he  invariably 
give  it  the  feminine  gender?  Why  is  this 
so,  even  though  the  city  be  named  for  a  man,  or  for  a 
masculine  saint?  And  why  is  it  so  in  the  case  of  com- 
monplace cities,  commercial  cities,  and  ugly,  sordid 
cities?  It  is  not  difficult  to  understand  why  a  beauti- 
ful, sparkling  city,  like  Washington  or  Paris,  suggests 
a  handsome  woman,  richly  gowned  and  bedecked  with 
jewels,  but  it  is  hard  to  understand  why  some  other 
cities,  far  less  pleasing,  seem  somehow  to  be  stamped 
with  the  qualities  of  woman-nature  rather  than  man- 
nature.  Is  it  perhaps  because  the  nature  of  all  cities  is 
so  complicated  ?  Is  it  because  they  are  volatile,  change- 
ful, baffling?  Or  is  it  only  that  they  are  the  mothers 
of  great  families  of  men? 

When  I  arrive  in  a  strange  city  I  feel  as  though  I 
were  making  the  acquaintance  of  a  woman  of  whom  I 
have  often  heard.  I  am  curious  about  her.  I  am  alert. 
I  gaze  at  her  eagerly,  wondering  if  she  is  as  I  have  imag- 
ined her.  I  try  to  read  her  expression  while  listening 
to  her  voice.  I  consider  her  raiment,  noticing  whether 
it  is  fine,  whether  it  is  good  only  in  spots,  and  whether 

619 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

it  is  well  put  together.  I  inspect  the  important  build- 
ings, boulevards,  parks,  and  monuments  with  which  she 
is  jeweled,  and  judge  by  them  not  only  of  her  pros- 
perity, but  of  her  sense  of  beauty.  Before  long  I  have 
a  distinct  impression  of  her.  Sometimes,  as  with  a 
woman,  this  first  impression  has  to  be  revised;  some- 
times not.  Sometimes,  on  acquaintance,  a  single  fea 
ture,  or  trait,  becomes  so  important  in  my  eyes  that  all 
else  seems  inconsequential.  A  noble  spirit  may  cover 
physical  defects;  beauty  may  seem  to  compensate  for 
weaknesses  of  character.  The  spell  of  a  beautiful  city 
which  is  bad  resembles  the  spell  of  such  a  city's  proto- 
type among  women. 

Some  young  growing  cities  are  like  young  growing 
women  of  whom  we  think:  ''She  is  as  yet  unformed, 
but  she  will  fill  out  and  become  more  charming  as  she 
grows  older."  Or  again  we  think:  "She  is  somewhat 
dowdy  and  run  down  at  the  heels  but  she  is  ambitious. 
and  is  replenishing  her  wardrobe  as  she  can  afford  it." 
One  expects  such  failings  in  young  cities,  and  readily 
forgives  them  where  there  is  wholesome  promise  for 
the  future.  But  where  old  cities  become  slovenly,  the 
affair  is  different,  for  then  it  means  physical  decay,  and 
physical  decay  should  never  come  to  a  city — for  a 
city  is  not  only  feminine,  but  should  be  immortal.  The 
symbol  for  every  city  should  be  a  goddess,  forever  in 
her  prime. 

Among  southern  cities  Richmond  is  the  grandc  dame: 
she  is  gray  and  distinguished,  and  wears  handsome  old 

620 


\,J.MU\.. 


The  mysterious  old  Absinthe  House,  founded  1799 


THE  CITY  OF  THE  CREOLE 

brocades  and  brooches.     Richmond  is  a(iuiline  and  crisp 
and  has  nuich   "manner."     But  though  Charleston  is 
actually  the  older,  the  wonderful  beauty  of  the  place,  the 
softness  of  the  ancient  architectural  lines,  the  sweet 
scents  wafting-  from  walled  gardens,  the  warmth  of 
color  everywhere,  gives  the  place  that  very  quality  of 
immortal  youth  and  loveliness  which  is  so  rare  in  cities, 
and  is  so  much  to  be  desired.     Charleston  I  might  alle- 
gorize in  the  person  of  a  young  woman  I  met  there.     I 
was  in  the  drawing-room  of  a  fine  old  house;  a  beauti- 
fully proportioned  room,  paneled  to  the  ceiling,  hung 
with  family  portraits  and  other  old  paintings,  and  fur- 
nished with  mahogany  masterpieces  a  century  and  a 
half  old.    'The  girl  lived  in  this  house.     She  was  not 
exactly  pretty,  nor  was  her  figure  beautiful  in  the  usual 
sense;  yet  it  was  beautiful,  all  the  same,  with  a  sort  of 
long-limbed,  supple,  aristocratic  aliveness.     Most  of  all 
there  was  about  her  a  great  fineness — the  kind  of  fine- 
ness which  seems  to  be  the  expression  of  generations  of 
fineness.     She  was  the  granddaughter  of  a  general  in 
the  Civil  War,  the  great-granddaughter  of  an  ambas- 
sador, the  great-great-granddaughter  of  a  Revolution- 
ary hero,  and  though  one  could  not  but  be  thankful  that 
she  failed  of  striking  resemblance  to  the  portraits  of 
these  admirable  ancestors,  nevertheless  it  seemed  to  me 
that,  had  I  not  known  definitely  of  their  place  in  her 
family  history,  I  might  almost  have  sensed  them  hover- 
ing behind  her:  a  background,  nebulous  and  shadowy, 
out  of  which  she  had  emerged. 

621 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Memphis,  upon  the  other  hand,  will  always  be  to  me  a 
lively  modern  debutante.  I  vision  her  as  dancing — 
dancing  to  Handy's  ragtime  music — all  shoulders,  neck, 
and  arms,  and  tulle,  and  twenty-dollar  satin  slippers. 
Atlanta,  too,  is  young,  vivid,  afllucnt,  altogether  modern ; 
while  as  for  Birmingham,  she  is  pretty,  but  a  little 
strident,  a  little  overdressed;  touched  a  little  with  the 
amiability,  and  the  other  qualities,  of  the  notwcaii  richc. 

The  beauty  of  New  Orleans  is  of  a  different  kind. 
She  is  a  full-blown,  black-eyed,  dreamy,  drawly  crea- 
ture, opulent  of  figure,  white  of  skin,  and  red  of  lip. 
Like  San  Francisco  she  has  Latin  blood  which  makes 
her  love'and  preserve  the  carnival  spirit ;  but  she  is  more 
voluptuous  than  San  Francisco,  for  not  only  is  she 
touched  with  the  languor  and  the  fire  of  her  climate, 
but  she  is  without  the  virile  blood  of  the  forty-niner,  or 
the  invigorating  contact  of  the  fresh  Pacific  wind.  In 
my  imaginary  picture  I  see  her  yawning  at  eleven  in  the 
morning,  when  her  negro  maid  brings  black  coffee  to 
her  bedside — such  wonderful  black  coffee! — whereas, 
at  that  hour,  I  conceive  San  Francisco  as  having  long 
been  up  and  about  her  affairs.  Even  in  the  afternoon 
I  fancy  my  New  Orleans  beauty  as  a  little  bit  relaxed. 
But  at  dinner  she  becomes  alive,  and  after  dinner  more 
alive,  and  by  midnight  she  is  like  a  flame. 

I  must  admit,  however,  that  of  late  years  New 
Orleans  has  developed  a  perfect  case  of  dual  personal- 
ity, and  that,  as  often  happens  where  there  is  dual  per- 
sonality, one  side  of  her  nature  seems  altogether  incom- 

622 


THE  CITY  OF  THE  CREOLE 

patible  with  the  other.  The  very  new  New  Orleans  has 
no  resemblance  to  the  picture  I  have  drawn;  moreover, 
my  picture  is  not  her  favorite  likeness  of  herself.  She 
prefers  more  recent  ones — pictures  showing  the  lines 
of  determination  which,  within  the  last  ten  years  have 
stamped  themselves  upon  her  features,  as  she  has  fought 
and  overcome  the  defects  of  character  which  logically 
accompanied  her  peculiar,  temperamental  type  of 
charm.  I,  upon  the  other  hand,  am  like  some  lover  who 
values  most  an  older  picture  of  the  woman  he  adores. 
I  admire  her  for  building  character,  but  it  is  by  her 
languorous  beauty  that  I  am  infatuated,  and  the  por- 
trait which  most  effectively  displays  that  beauty  is  the 
one  for  which  I  care. 

Her  very  failings  were  so  much  a  part  of  her  that 
they  made  us  the  more  sympathetic;  she  was  too  lovely 
to  be  greatly  blamed  for  anything;  gazing  into  her  eyes, 
we  hardly  noticed  that  there  was  dust  under  the  piano 
and  in  the  corners;  dining  at  her  sumptuous  table,  we 
gave  but  little  thought  to  the  fact  that  the  cellar  was 
damp,  the  house  none  too  healthy,  and  that  there  were 
mosquitoes  and  rats  about  the  place;  nor  did  it  seem  to 
matter,  in  face  of  her  allurements,  that  she  was  shift- 
less, extravagant,  improvident  in  the  management  of 
her  affairs.  If  these  things  were  brought  to  our  atten- 
tion, we  excused  them  on  the  grounds  of  Latin  blood 
and  enervating  climate. 

But  if  we  excused  her,  she  did  not  excuse  herself. 
Without   being   shaken   awake   by  an   earthquake,   or 

623 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

forced  to  action  by  a  devastating  fire  or  flood,  she  set 
to  work,  calmly  and  of  her  own  volition,  to  reform  her 
character. 

First  she  cleaned  house,  providing  good  surface  drain- 
age, an  excellent  filtered  water  sui)ply  from  the  river 
in  place  of  her  old  mosquito-breeding  cisterns,  and  mod- 
ern sewers  in  place  of  cesspools.  She  killed  rats  by  the 
hundreds  of  thousands,  rat-proofed  her  buildings,  and 
thus,  at  one  stroke,  eliminated  all  fear  of  bubonic  plague. 
She  began  to  take  interest  in  the  public  schools,  and 
soon  trebled  their  advantages.  She  concerned  herself 
with  the  revision  of  repressive  tax  laws.  She  secured 
one  of  the  best  street  railway  systems  in  the  country. 
But,  perhaps  most  striking  of  all,  she  set  to  work  to 
build  scientifically  toward  ihc  realization  of  a  gigantic 
dream.  This  dream  embodies  the  resumption  by  New 
Orleans  of  her  old  place  as  second  seaport  city.  To 
this  end  she  is  doing  more  than  any  other  city  to  revive 
the  commerce  of  the  Mississippi  River,  and  is  at  the 
same  time  making  a  strong  bid  for  trade  by  way  of  the 
Panama  Canal,  as  well  as  other  sea  traffic.  She  has 
restored  her  forty  miles  of  water  front  to  the  people, 
has  built  municipal  docks  and  warehouses  at  a  cost  of 
millions,  and  has  so  perfectly  coordinated  her  river- 
rail-sea  traffic-handling  agencies  that  rates  have  been 
greatly  reduced.  Upon  these,  and  related  enterprises, 
upward  of  a  hundred  millions  are  being  spent,  and  the 
vast  plan  is  working  out  with  such  promise  that  one 
almost  begins  to  fear  lest  New  Orleans  become  too  much 

624 


THE  CITY  OF  THE  CREOLE 

enamored  of  her  new-found  materialism — lest  the  easy- 
going, pleasure-loving,  fascinating  Creole  belle  be  trans- 
formed into  the  much-less-rare  and  much-less-desirable 
business  type  of  woman :  a  woman  whose  letters,  instead 
of  being  written  in  a  fine  French  hand  and  scented  with 
the  faint  fragrance  of  vertivert,  are  typewritten  upon 
commercial  paper;  whose  lips,  instead  of  causing  one 
to  think  of  kisses,  are  laden  with  the  deadly  cant  of 
commerce;  whose  skin,  instead  of  seeming  to  be  made 
of  milk  and  rose  leaves,  is  dappled  with  industrial  soot. 

Lord  Chesterfield  in  one  of  his  letters  to  his  son,  in- 
timated that  beautiful  women  desire  to  be  flattered  upon 
their  intelligence,  while  intelligent  women  who  are  not 
altogether  ugly  like  to  be  told  that  they  are  beautiful. 
So  with  New  Orleans.  Speak  of  her  individuality,  her 
picturesqueness,  her  gift  of  laughter,  and  she  will  listen 
with  polite  ennui;  but  admire  her  commercial  progress 
and  she  will  hang  upon  your  words.  Gaiety  and  charm 
are  so  much  a  part  of  her  that  she  not  only  takes  them 
as  a  matter  of  course,  but  seems  to  doubt,  sometimes, 
that  they  are  virtues.  She  is  like  some  unusual  and 
fascinating  woman  who,  instead  of  rejoicing  because 
she  is  not  like  all  other  women,  begins  to  wonder  if  she 
ought  not  to  be  like  them.  Perhaps  she  is  wrong  to  be 
gay?  Perhaps  her  carnival  proves  her  frivolous?  Per- 
haps she  ought  not  to  continue  to  hold  a  carnival  each 
year? 

Far  to  the  north  of  New  Orleans  the  city  of  St.  Paul 
was  afflicted,  some  years  since,  by  a  similar  agitation. 

625 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

It  will  be  remembered  that  St.  Paul  used  to  build  an  ice 
palace  each  year.  People  used  to  go  to  see  it  as  they 
go  to  New  Orleans  for  Mardi  Gras.  Then  came  some 
believer  in  the  standardization  of  cities,  advancing  the 
idea  that  ice  palaces  advertised  St.  Paul  as  a  cold  place. 
As  a  result  they  ceased  to  be  built.  St.  Paul  threw 
away  something  which  drew  attention  to  her  and  which 
gave  her  character.  Moreover,  I  am  told  this  mania 
went  so  far  that  when  folders  were  issued  for  the  pur- 
pose of  advertising  the  region,  they  were  designed  to 
suggest  the  warmth  and  brilliance  of  the  tropics.  Had 
St.  Paul  a  bad  climate,  instead  of  a  peculiarly  fine  one, 
we  might  feel  sympathetic  tolerance  for  these  perform- 
ances, but  a  city  which  enjoys  cool  summers  and  dry, 
bracing  winters  has  no  apologies  to  make  upon  the  score 
of  climate,  and  only  need  apologize  if  she  tries  to  make 
us  think  that  bananas  and  cocoanuts  grow  on  sugar- 
maple  trees.  However,  in  the  last  year  or  two,  St.  Paul 
has  perceived  the  folly  of  her  course,  and  has  resumed 
her  annual  carnival. 

In  the  case  of  New  Orleans  I  cannot  believe  there  is 
real  danger  that  the  carnival  will  be  given  up.  Instead, 
I  believe  that  the  business  enthusiasts  will  be  appeased 
— as  they  were  a  year  or  two  ago,  for  the  first  time  in 
carnival  history — by  the  inclusion  of  an  industrial 
pageant  glorifying  the  city's  commercial  renaissance. 
Also  the  New  Orleans  newspapers  soothe  the  spirit  of 
the  Association  of  Commerce,  at  carnival  time,  by  pub- 
lishing items  presumably  furnished  by  that  capable  or- 

626 


THE  CITY  OF  THE  CREOLE 

ganization,  showing  that  business  is  going  on  as  usual, 
that  bank  clearings  have  not  diminished  during  the  fes- 
tivities, and  that,  despite  the  air  of  happiness  that  per- 
vades the  town.  New  Orleans  is  not  really  beginning  to 
have  such  a  good  time  as  a  stranger  might  suppose  from 
superficial  signs.  With  such  concessions  made  to  sol- 
emn visaged  commerce,  is  the  carnival  continued. 

There  are  at  least  six  cities  on  this  continent  which 
every  one  should  see.  Every  one  should  see  New  York 
because  it  is  the  largest  city  in  the  world,  and  because 
it  combines  the  magnificence,  the  wonder,  the  beauty, 
the  sordidness,  and  the  shame  of  a  great  metropolis; 
every  one  should  see  San  Francisco  because  it  is  so 
vivid,  so  alive,  so  golden;  every  one  should  see  Wash- 
ington, the  clean,  white  splendor  of  which  is  like  the 
embodiment  of  a  national  dream;  every  one  should  see 
the  old  gray  granite  city  of  Quebec,  piled  on  its  hill  above 
the  river  like  some  fortified  town  in  France;  every  one 
should  see  the  sweet  and  aristocratic  city  of  Charleston, 
which  suggests  a  museum  of  tradition  and  early  Ameri- 
can elegance;  and  of  course  every  one  should  see  New 
Orleans. 

As  to  whether  it  is  best  to  see  the  city  in  everyday 
attire,  or  masked  for  the  revels,  that  is  a  matter  of 
taste,  and  perhaps  of  age  as  well.  To  any  one  who 
loves  cities,  New  Orleans  is  always  good  to  see,  while 
to  the  lover  of  spectacles  and  fetes  the  carnival  is  also 
worth  seeing — once.     The  two  are,  however,  hardly  to 

627 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

be  seen  to  advantage  simultaneously.  To  visit  New 
Orleans  in  carnival  time  is  like  visiting  some  tine  old 
historic  mansion  when  it  is  all  in  a  flurry  over  a  fancy- 
dress  ball.  The  furniture  is  moved,  master,  mistress 
and  servants  are  excited,  the  cook  is  overworked  and 
is  perhaps  complaining  a  little,  and  the  brilliant  cos- 
tumes of  the  masquerade  divert  the  eye  of  the  visitor 
so  that  he  hardly  knows  what  sort  of  house  he  is  in. 
Attend  the  ball  if  you  like,  but  do  not  fail  to  revisit 
the  house  when  normal  conditions  have  been  restored; 
see  the  festivities  of  Mardi  Gras  if  you  will,  but  do  not 
fail  to  browse  about  old  New  Orleans  and  sit  down  at 
her  famous  tables  when  her  chefs  have  time  to  do  their 
best. 


628 


CHAPTER  LVII 
HISTORY,  THE  CREOLE,  AND  HIS  DUELS 

CANAL  STREET  is  to  New  Orleans  much  more 
than  Main  Street  is  to  Buffalo,  much  more  than 
Broad  Street  is  to  Philadelphia,  much  more 
than  Broadway  and  Fifth  Avenue  are  to  New  York,  for 
Canal  Street  divides  New  Orleans  as  no  other  street 
divides  an  American  city.  It  divides  New  Orleans  as 
the  Seine  divides  Paris,  and  there  is  not  more  difference 
between  the  right  bank  of  the  Seine  and  the  Latin 
Quarter  than  between  American  New  Orleans  and 
Creole  New  Orleans :  between  the  newer  part  of  the  city 
and  the  vieux  carre.  The  sixty  squares  ("islets"  ac- 
cording to  the  Creole  idiom,  because  each  block  was 
literally  an  islet  in  time  of  flood)  which  comprise  the  old 
French  town  established  in  1718  by  the  Sieur  de  Bien- 
ville, are  unlike  the  rest  of  the  city  not  merely  in  archi- 
tecture, but  in  all  respects.  The  street  names  change 
at  Canal  Street,  the  highways  become  narrower  as  you 
enter  the  French  quarter,  and  the  pavements  are  made 
of  huge  stone  blocks  brought  over  long  ago  as  ballast  in 
sailing  ships.  Nor  is  the  difference  purely  physical. 
For  though  they  will  tell  you  that  this  part  of  the  city 
is  not  so  French  and  Spanish  as  it  used  to  be,  that  it  has 
run  down,  that  large  parts  of  it  have  been  given  over  to 

629 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Italians  of  the  lower  class,  and  to  negroes,  it  remains 
not  only  in  appearance,  but  in  custom,  thought  and 
character,  the  most  perfectly  foreign  little  tract  of  land 
in  the  whole  United  States.  Long  ago,  under  the 
French  flag,  it  was  a  part  of  the  Roman  Catholic  bishop- 
ric of  Quebec;  later  under  the  Spanish  flag,  a  part  of 
that  of  Havana;  and  it  is  charming  to  trace  in  old 
buildings,  names,  and  customs  the  signs  of  this  blended 
French  and  Spanish  ancestry. 

La  Salle,  searching  out  a  supposed  route  to  China 
by  way  of  the  Mississippi  River,  seems  to  have  per- 
ceived what  the  New  Orleans  Association  of  Commerce 
perceives  to-day:  that  the  control  of  the  mouth  of  the 
river  ought  to  mean  also  the  control  of  a  vast  part  of 
the  continent.  At  all  events,  he  took  possession  in  1682 
in  the  name  of  the  French  King,  calling  the  river  St. 
Louis  and  the  country  Louisiana.  The  latter  name 
persisted,  but  La  Salle  himself  later  rechristened  the 
river,  giving  it  the  name  Colbert,  thereby  showing  that 
in  two  attempts  he  could  not  find  a  name  one  tenth  as 
good  as  that  already  provided  by  the  savages.  The  "St. 
Louis  River"  might,  from  its  name,  be  a  fair-sized 
stream,  but  "Colbert"  sounds  like  the  name  of  a  river 
about  twenty  miles  long,  forty  feet  wide  at  the  mouth, 
and  five  feet  deep  at  the  very  middle. 

La  Salle  intended  to  build  a  fort  at  a  point  sixty 
leagues  above  the  mouth  of  the  river,  but  his  expedition 
met  with  disaster  upon  disaster,  until  at  last  he  was  as- 
sassinated in  Texas,  when  setting  out  on  foot  to  seek 

630 


HISTORY,  THE  CREOLE,  AND  HIS  DUELS 

help  from  Canada.  In  1699  came  Iberville,  the  Cana- 
dian, exploring  the  river  and  fixing  on  the  site  for  the 
future  city.  Iberville  established  settlements  at  old 
Biloxi  (now  Ocean  Springs)  and  Mobile,  but  before  he 
had  time  to  make  a  town  at  New  Orleans  he  caught 
yellow  fever  at  Havana,  and  died  there.  It  therefore 
remained  for  his  brother,  Bienville,  actually  to  estab- 
lish the  town,  and  New  Orleans  is  Bienville's  city,  just 
as  Detroit  is  Cadillac's,  and  Cleveland  General  Moses 
Cleveland's. 

Bienville's  settlers  were  hardly  pioneers  from  Can- 
ada, and  presently  we  find  him  writing  to  France: 
''Send  me  wives  for  my  Canadians.  They  are  running 
in  the  woods  after  Indian  girls."  The  priests  also 
urged  that  unless  white  wives  could  be  sent  out  for  the 
settlers,  marriages  with  Indians  be  sanctioned. 

Having  now  a  considerable  investment  in  Louisiana, 
France  felt  that  a  request  for  wives  for  the  colony  was 
practical  and  legitimate.  Louisiana  must  have  popu- 
lation. A  bonus  of  so  much  per  head  was  offered  for 
colonists,  and  hideous  things  ensued :  servants,  children, 
and  helpless  women  were  kidnapped,  and  the  occupants 
of  hospitals,  asylums,  and  houses  of  correction  were 
assembled  and  deported.  Incidentally  it  will  be  remem- 
bered that  out  of  these  black  deeds  flowered  "the  first 
masterpiece  of  French  literature  which  can  properly  be 
called  a  novel,"  the  Abbe  Prevost's  ''Manon  Lescaut," 
which  has  been  dramatized  and  redramatized,  and 
which  is  the  theme  of  operas  by  both  Massenet  and  Puc- 

631 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

cini.  Though  a  grave  alleged  to  be  that  of  IManon 
used  to  be  shown  on  the  outskirts  of  the  city,  there  is 
doubt  that  such  a  person  actually  existed,  although  those 
who  wish  to  believe  in  a  Hesh-and-blood  Manon  may  per- 
haps take  encouragement  from  the  fact  that  the  arrival 
in  the  colony  of  a  Chevalier  des  Grieux,  in  the  year 
1 7 19,  fourteen  years  before  the  book  appeared,  has  been 
established,  and,  further,  that  the  name  of  the  Cheva- 
lier des  Grieux  may  be  seen  upon  a  crumbling  tomb  in 
one  of  the  river  parishes. 

When  the  girls  arrived  they  were  on  inspection  in  the 
daytime,  but  at  night  were  carefully  guarded  by  sol- 
diers, in  the  house  where  they  were  quartered  together. 
Miss  Grace  King,  in  her  delightful  book,  "New  Orleans, 
the  Place  and  the  People,"  tells  us  that  in  these  times 
there  were  never  enough  girls  to  fill  the  demand  for 
wives,  and  that  in  one  instance  two  young  bachelors  pro- 
posed to  fight  over  a  very  plain  girl — the  last  one  left 
out  of  a  shipload — but  that  the  commandant  obliged 
them  to  settle  their  dispute  by  the  more  pacific  means  of 
drawing  lots.  As  the  place  became  settled  Ursuline 
sisters  arrived  and  established  schools.  And  at  last,  a 
C[uarter  of  a  century  after  the  landing  of  the  first  ship- 
ment of  girls,  the  curious  history  of  female  importations 
ended  with  the  arrival  of  that  famous  band  of  sixty 
demoiselles  of  respectable  family  and  "authenticated 
spotless  reputation,"  who  came  to  be  taken  as  wives  by 
only  the  more  prosperous  young  colonists  of  the  better 
class.     The  earlier,  less  reputable  girls  have  come  down 

632 


HISTORY,  THE  CREOLE,  AND  HIS  DUELS 

to  us  by  the  name  of  "correction  girls,"  but  these  later 
arrivals — each  furnished  by  the  Company  of  the  West 
with  a  casket  containing  a  trousseau — are  known  to  this 
day  as  les  filles  a  la  cassette,  or  "casket  girls." 

A  curious  feature  of  this  bit  of  history,  as  it  applies 
to  present-day  New  Orleans,  is  that  though  one  hears 
of  many  families  that  claim  descent  from  some  nice, 
well-behaved  "casket  girl,"  one  never  by  any  chance 
hears  of  a  family  claiming  to  be  descended  from  a  lady 
of  the  other  stock.  When  it  is  considered  that  the  "cor- 
rection girls"  far  outnumbered  their  virtuous  sisters  of 
the  casket,  and  ought,  therefore,  by  the  law  of  aver- 
ages, to  have  left  a  greater  progeny,  the  matter  becomes 
stranger  still,  taking  on  a  scientific  interest.  The  ex- 
planation must,  however,  be  left  to  some  mind  more  as- 
tute than  mine — some  mind  capable,  perhaps,  of  unrav- 
eling also  those  other  riddles  of  New  Orleans  namely: 
Who  was  the  mysterious  chevalier  who  many  years  ago 
invented  that  most  delectable  of  sucreries,  the  praline, 
and  whither  did  he  vanish  ?  And  how,  although  the  ref- 
ugee Due  d'Orleans  (later  Louis  Philippe  of  France) 
stayed  but  a  short  time  in  New  Orleans,  did  he  manage 
to  sleep  in  so  many  hundred  beds,  and  in  houses  which 
were  not  built  until  long  after  his  departure  ?  And  why 
are  so  many  of  the  signs,  over  bars,  restaurants,  and 
shops,  of  that  blue  and  white  enamel  one  associates  with 
the  signs  of  the  Western  Union  Telegraph  Company? 
And  why  is  the  nickel  as  characteristic  of  New  Orleans 
as  is  the  silver  dollar  of  the  farther  Middle  West,  and 

633 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

gold  coin  of  the  Pacific  Slope — why,  when  one  pays  for 
a  ten-cent  purchase  with  a  half-dollar,  does  one  receive 
eight  nickels  in  change?  Ah,  hut  New  Orleans  is  a 
mysterious  city! 

Once,  when  the  French  and  English  were  fighting  for 
the  possession  of  Canada  and  New  Orleans  was  depend- 
ing for  protection  on  Swiss  mercenaries,  the  French  of- 
ficer in  command  of  these  troops  disciplined  them  by 
stripping  them  and  tying  them  to  trees,  where  they  were 
a  pre}^  to  the  terrible  mosquitoes  of  the  Gulf.  One  day 
they  killed  him  and  fled,  but  some  of  them  were  cap- 
tured. These  were  taken  back  to  New  Orleans,  court- 
martialed,  and  punished  according  to  the  regulations: 
they  were  nailed  alive  to  their  coffins  and  sawed  in  two. 

Ceded  to  Spain  by  a  secret  clause  in  the  Treaty  of 
Paris,  of  which  she  did  not  know  until  1764,  Louisiana 
could  not  believe  the  news.  Even  when  the  Acadians, 
appeared,  after  having  been  so  cruelly  ejected  from  their 
lands  in  what  is  now^  New  Brunswick,  Louisiana  could 
not  believe  that  Louis  XV  would  coldly  cast  off  his  loyal 
colony.  The  fact  that  he  had  done  so  was  not  credited 
until  a  Spanish  governor  arrived.  For  three  years 
after,  there  was  confusion.  Then  a  strong  force  was 
sent  from  Spain  under  Count  O'Reilly,  a  man  of  Irish 
birth,  but  Spanish  allegiance,  and  the  flag  of  Spain  was 
raised.  O'Reilly  maintained  viceregal  splendor ;  he  in- 
vited leading  citizens  to  a  levee;  here  in  his  own  house 
he  caused  his  soldiers  to  seize  the  group  of  j^rominent 
men  who  had  attempted  to  prevent  the  accomplishment 

634 


HISTORY,  THE  CREOLE,  AND  HIS  DUELS 

of  Spanish  rule,  and  five  of  these  he  presently  caused  to 
be  shot  as  rebels. 

Spanish  governors  came  and  went.  The  people 
settled  down.  At  one  time  Padre  Antonio  de  Sedella, 
a  Spanish  Capuchin,  arrived  with  a  commission  to  es- 
tablish in  the  city  the  Holy  office  of  the  Inquisition,  but 
he  was  discouraged  and  shipped  back  to  Cadiz.  Miss 
King  tells  us  that  when,  half  a  century  later,  the  cala- 
boose was  demolished,  secret  dungeons  containing  in- 
struments of  torture  were  discovered. 

On  Good"  Friday,   1788,  fire  broke  out,  and  as  the 
priests  refused  to  let  the  bells  be  rung  in  warning,  saying 
that  all  bells  must  be  dumb  on  Good  Friday,  the  confla- 
gration gained  such  headway  that  it  could  not  be  checked, 
and  a  large  part  of  the  old  French  town  was  reduced  to 
ashes.     Six  years  later  another  fire  equally  destructive, 
completed  the  work  of  blotting  out  the  French  town,  and 
the  old  New  Orleans  we  now  know  is  the  Spanish  city 
which  arose  in  its  place :  a  city  not  of  wood  but  of  adobe 
or  brick,  stuccoed  and  tinted,  of  arcaded  walks,  galleries, 
jalousies,  ponderous  doors,  and  inner  courts  with  car- 
riag-e  entrances  from  the  street,  and,  behind,  the  most 
charming  and  secluded  gardens.     Also,  owing  to  pre- 
miums ofifered  by  Baron  Carondelet,  the  governor,  tile 
roofs  came  into  vogue,  so  that  the  city  became  compar- 
atively fireproof.     Much  of  the  present-day  charm  of 
the  old  city  is  due  also  to  the  noble  Andalusian,  Don 
Andreas  Almonaster  y  Roxas,  who  having  immigrated 
and  made  a  great  fortune  in  the  city,  became  its  bene- 

635 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

factor,  building  schools  and  other  puljlic  institutions,  the 
picturesque  old  Cabildo,  or  town  hall,  which  is  now  a 
most  fascinating  museum,  the  cathedral,  which  adjoins 
the  Cabildo,  and  which,  like  it,  faces  Jackson  Square, 
formerly  the  Place  d'Armes.  In  front  of  the  altar  of 
his  cathedral  Don  Andreas  is  buried,  and  masses  are 
said,  in  perpetuity,  for  his  soul.  When  the  Don's  young 
widow  remarried,  she  and  her  husband  were  pursued 
by  a  charivari  lasting  three  days  and  three  nights — the 
most  famous  charivari  in  the  liistory  of  a  city  w'idely 
noted  for  these  detestable  functions.  The  Don's 
daughter,  a  great  heiress,  became  the  Baronne  Pon- 
talba  and  resided  in  magnificence  in  Paris,  where  she 
died,  a  very  old  woman,  in  1S74. 

In  the  Place  d'Armes  much  of  the  early  history  of 
New  Orleans,  and  indeed,  of  Louisiana,  was  written. 
Here,  and  in  the  Cabildo,  the  transfers  from  flag  to  flag 
took  place,  ending  with  the  ceding  of  Louisiana  by  Spain 
to  France,  and  by  France  to  the  United  States.  At  this 
time  New  Orleans  had  about  ten  thousand  inhabitants, 
most  of  the  w^hites  being  Creoles. 

Harris  Dickson,  who  knows  a  great  deal  about  New 
Orleans,  declared  in  an  article  published  some  years  ago, 
that  outside  lower  Louisiana  the  word  "Creole"  is  still 
misunderstood,  and  added  this  definition  of  the  term: 
"A  person  of  mixed  French  and  Spanish  blood,  born  in 
Louisiana."  As  I  understand  it,  how^ever,  the  blood 
need  not  necessarily  be  mixed,  but  may  be  pure  Spanish 
or  pure  French,  or  again,  there  may  be  some  admixture 

636 


HISTORY,  THE  CREOLE,  AND  HIS  DUELS 

of  English  blood.  The  word  itself  was,  I  am  informed, 
originally  Spanish, -and  signified  an  American  descended 
from  Spaniards;  later  it  got  into  the  language  of  the 
French  West  Indies,  whence  it  was  imported,  to  Louis- 
iana, about  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  by  refugees 
who  arrived  in  considerable  numbers  from  San  Do- 
mingo, after  the  revolution  of  the  blacks  there.  Thus, 
the  early  French  settlers  did  not  use  the  word. 

If  any  misapprehension  as  to  whether  a  Creole  is  a 
whit?  person  does  still  exist,  that  misunderstanding  is, 
I  believe,  to  be  traced  to  the  doors  of  an  old-time  cheap 
burlesque  theater  in  Chicago,  where  the  late  impresario, 
Sam  T.  Jack,  put  on  a  show  in  which  mulatto  women 
were  billed  as  "a  galaxy  of  Creole  beauties."  This 
show  traveled  about  the  country  libeling  the  Creoles  and 
doubtless  causing  many  persons  of  that  class  wdiich  at- 
tended Sam  T.  Jack's  shows,  to  believe  that  ''Creole" 
means  something  like  ''quadroon."  But  when  the  show 
got  to  Baton  Rouge  the  manager  was  waited  upon  by  a 
committee  of  citizens  who  said  certain  things  to  him 
which  caused  him  to  give  up  his  engagement  there  and 
cancel  any  other  engagements  he  had  in  the  Creole 
country. 

True,  one  frequently  hears  references  in  New  Orleans 
to  "Creole  mammies,"  and  "Creole  negroes,"  but  the 
word  used  in  that  sense  merely  indicates  a  negro  who 
has  been  the  servant  of  Creoles,  and  who  speaks  French 
— "gombo  French"  the  curious  dialect  is  called.  Sim- 
ilarly one  hears  of  "Creole  ponies" — these  being  ponies 

^Z7 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

of  the  small,  strong  type  used  by  the  Cajan  farmers. 
According  to  the  Louisiana  dialect  Longfellow's  "Evan- 
geline" was  a  Cajan,  the  w(jrd  being  a  corruption  of 
"Acadian."  About  a  thousand  of  these  unfortunate 
expatriates  arrived  in  New  Orleans  between  1765  and 
1768.  Within  a  century  they  had  multiplied  to  forty 
times  that  number,  spreading  over  the  entire  western 
part  of  the  State. 

Much  of  the  temperament,  the  gaiety,  the  sensitive- 
ness of  New  Orleans  comes  from  the  Creole.  lie  was 
Latin  enough  to  be  a  good  deal  of  a  gambler,  to  love 
beautiful  w^omen,  and  on  slight  provocation  to  draw  his 
sword. 

The  street  names  of  New  Orleans — not  only  those  of 
the  French  Quarter,  but  of  the  whole  city — reflect  his 
various  tastes.  Many  of  the  streets  bear  the  names  of 
historic  figures  of  the  French  and  Spanish  regimes; 
Rampart  Street,  formerly  the  rue  des  Ramparts  marks, 
like  the  outer  boulevards  of  Paris,  the  line  of  the  old  city 
wall.  Other  streets  were  given  pretty  feminine  names 
by  the  old  Creole  gallants:  Suzette,  Celeste,  Estelle, 
Angelie,  and  the  like.  The  devout  doubtless  had  their 
share  in  the  naming  of  Religious  Street,  Nuns  Street, 
Piety  Street,  Assumption  Street,  and  Amen  Street. 
The  taste  for  Greek  and  Roman  classicism  which  de- 
veloped in  France  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  found 
its  way  to  Louisiana,  and  is  reflected  in  New  Orleans  by 
streets  bearing  the  names  of  gods,  demi  gods,  the  muses 
and  the  graces.     The  pronunciation  given  to  some  of 

638 


HISTORY,  THE  CREOLE,  AND  HIS  DUELS 

these  names  is  curious:  Melpomene,  instead  of  being 
given  four  syllables  is  called  Melpomeen;  Calliope  is 
similarly  Callioap;  Euterpe,  Euterp,  and  so  on.  This, 
however,  is  the  result  not  of  ignorance,  but  of  a  slight 
corruption  of  the  correct  French  pronunciations,  the 
Americans  having  taken  their  way  of  pronouncing  the 
names  from  the  French.  The  Napoleonic  wars  are 
commemorated  in  the  names  of  Napoleon  Avenue,  and 
Austerlitz  and  Jena  Streets,  and  the  visit  of  Lafayette  in 
the  naming  for  him  of  both  a  street  and  an  avenue.  But 
perhaps  the  most  striking  names  of  all  the  old  ones  were 
Mystery  Street,  Madman's  Street,  Love  Street  (Rue  de 
r Amour),  Goodchildren  Street  (Rue  des  Bons  Enfants), 
and  above  all  those  two  streets  in  the  Faubourg  Marigny 
which  old  Bernard  Marigny  amused  himself  by  naming 
for  two  games  of  chance  at  which,  it  is  said,  he  had 
lost  a  fortune — namely  Bagatelle  and  Craps — the  latter 
not  the  game  played  with  dice,  but  an  old-time  game  of 
cards. 

The  French  spoken  by  cultivated  Creoles  bears  to  the 
French  of  modern  France  about  the  same  relation  as  the 
current  English  of  Virginia  does  to  that  of  England. 
Creole  French  is  founded  largely  upon  the  French  of 
the  seventeenth  and  early  eighteenth  century,  just  as 
many  of  the  so-called  "Americanisms"  of  older  parts  of 
the  country,  including  Virginia  and  New  England,  are 
Elizabethan.  The  early  English  and  French  colonists, 
coming  to  this  country  with  the  language  of  their  times, 
dropped,  over  here,  into  a  linguistic  backwater.     In  the 

639 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

mother  countries  language  continued  tu  renew  itself  as 
it  flowed  along,  by  elisions,  by  the  adoption  and  legiti- 
matizing of  slang  words  (as  for  instance  the  word 
"cab,"  to  which  Dean  Swift  objected  on  the  ground  that 
it  was  slang  for  "cabriolet"),  and  by  all  the  other  means 
through  which  our  vocabularies  are  forever  changing. 
But  to  the  colonies  these  changes  were  not  carried,  and 
such  changes  as  occurred  in  the  French  and  English  of 
America  were,  for  the  most  part,  separate  and  distinct 
(as  exampled  by  such  Creole  words  as  "banquette"  for 
"sidewalk,"  in  place  of  the  French  word  trottoir,  and 
the  word  "baire,"  whence  comes  the  American  term 
"mosquito  bar."  The  influence  elf  colloquial  French 
from  Canada  may  also  be  traced  in  New  Orleans,  and 
the  language  there  was  further  affected  by  the  strange 
jargon  spoken  by  the  Creole  negro — precisely  as  the 
English  dialect  of  negroes  in  other  parts  of  the  South 
may  be  said  to  have  affected  the  speech  of  all  the 
Southern  States. 

Between  the  dialect  of  the  Louisiana  Cajan  and  that 
of  the  French  Canadian  of  Quebec  and  northern  New 
York  there  is  a  strong  resemblance ;  but  the  Creole  negro 
language  is  a  thing  entirely  apart,  being  made  up,  it  is 
said,  partly  from  French  and  partly  from  African  word 
sounds,  just  as  the  "gulla"  of  the  South  Carolina  coast 
is  made  up  from  African  and  English.  The  one  is  no 
more  intelligible  to  a  Frenchman  than  the  other  to  a 
Londoner.  The  ignorant  Creole  negro  wishing  to  say 
"I  do  not  understand,"  would  not  say  "moi  je  ne  com- 

640 


o 


HISTORY,  THE  CREOLE,  AND  HIS  DUELS 

prends  pas,"  but  "mo  pas  connais";  similarly  for  "I  am 
going  away,"  he  does  not  say,  "je  m'en  vais,"  but  ''ma 
pe  couri";  while  for  'T  have  a  horse,"  instead  of  ''j'ai 
un  cheval,"  he  will  put  the  statement,  "me  ganye  choue." 
It  is  a  dialect  lacking  mood,  tense,  and  grammar. 

To  this  day  one  may  occasionally  see  in  New  Orleans 
and  in  other  lower  river  towns  an  old  "mammy"  wear- 
ing the  bandanna  headdress  called  a  tignon,  which,  to- 
ward the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  was  made  com- 
pulsory for  colored  women  in  Louisiana.  The  need  for 
some  such  distinguishing  racial  badge  was,  it  is  said, 
twofold.  Yellow  sirens  from  the  French  West  Indies, 
flocking  to  New  Orleans,  were  becoming  exceedingly 
conspicuous  in  dress  and  adornment;  furthermore  one 
hears  stories  of  wealthy  white  men,  fathers  of  octoroon 
or  quadroon  girls,  who  sent  these  illegitimate  daughters 
abroad  to  be  educated.  The  latter,  one  learns  from 
many  sources,  were  very  often  beautiful  in  the  extreme, 
as  were  also  the  Domingan  girls,  and  history  is  full  of 
the  tales  of  the  curious,  wild,  fashionably  caparisoned, 
declasse  circle  of  society,  which  came  to  exist  in  New 
Orleans  through  the  presence  there  of  so  many  alluring 
women  of  light  color  and  equally  light  character.  Some 
of  these  women,  it  is  said,  could  hardly  be  distinguished 
from  brunette  whites,  and  it  was  largely  for  this  rea- 
son that  the  tignon  was  placed  by  law  upon  the  heads  of 
all  women  having  negro  blood. 

No  morsels  from  the  history  of  old  New  Orleans  are 
more  suggestive  to  the  imagination  than  the  hints  we  get 

641 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

from  many  sources  of  wildly  dissipated  life  centering 
around  the  notorious  quadroon  balls — or  as  they  were 
called  in  their  day,  cordon  bleu  balls.  An  old  guide  book 
informs  me  that  the  women  who  were  the  great  attrac- 
tion at  these  functions  were  "probably  the  handsomest 
race  of  women  in  the  world,  and  were,  besides,  si)lendid 
dancers  and  finished  dressers."  Authorities  seem  to 
agree  that  these  balls  were  exceedingly  popular  among 
the  young  Creole  o^entlemen,  as  well  as  with  men  visit- 
ing the  city,  and  that  duels,  resulting  from  quarrels  over 
the  women,  were  of  common  occurrence.  If  a  Creole 
had  the  choice  of  w^eapons  slender  swords  called  coIicJi- 
cmardcs  were  used,  whereas  pistols  were  almost  inva- 
riably selected  by  Americans.  Duels  with  swords  were 
often  fought  indoors,  but  when  firearms  were  to  be  em- 
ployed the  combatants  repaired  to  one  of  the  customary 
dueling  grounds.  Under  the  fine  old  live  oaks  of  the 
City  Park — then  out  in  the  country — it  is  said  that  as 
many  as  ten  duels  have  been  fought  in  a  single  day. 
Duels  having  their  beginnings  at  the  quadroon  balls 
were,  however,  often  fought  in  St.  Anthony's  Garden, 
for  the  ballroom  was  in  a  building  (now  occupied  by  a 
sisterhood  of  colored  nuns)  which  stands  on  Orleans 
Street,  near  -where  it  abuts  against  the  Garden.  This 
garden,  bearing  the  name  of  the  saint  whose  temptations 
have  been  of  such  conspicuous  interest  to  painters  of  the 
nude,  is  not  named  for  him  so  much  in  his  own  right,  as 
because  he  was  the  patron  of  that  same  Padre  Antonio 
de  Sedella,  already  mentioned,  who  came  to  New  Or- 

642 


HISTORY,  THE  CREOLE,  AND  HIS  DUELS 

leans  tu  institute  the  Inquisition,  but  who,  after  having 
been  sent  away  by  Governor  Miro,  returned  as  a  secular 
priest  and  became  much  beloved  for  his  good  works. 
Padre  Antonio  lived  in  a  hut  near  the  garden,  and  it  is 
he  who  figures  in  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich's  story  "Pere 
Antoine's  Date  Palm." 

To  the  Creole,  more  than  to  any  other  source,  may  be 
traced  the  origin  of  dueling  in  the  United  States,  and  no 
city  in  the  country  has  such  a  dueling  history  as  New 
Orleans.  The  American  took  the  practice  from  the 
Latin  and  by  the  adoption  of  pistols  made  the  duel  a 
much  more  serious  thing  than  it  had  previously  been, 
when  swords  were  employed  and  first  blood  usually  con- 
stituted "satisfaction."  Up  to  the  .time  of  the  Civil 
War  the  man  who  refused  a  challenge  became  a  sort  of 
outcast,  and  I  have  been  told  that  even  to  this  day  a 
duel  is  occasionally  fought.  Governor  Claiborne,  jirst 
American  governor  of  Louisiana,  was  a  duelist,  and  his 
monument — a  family  monument  in  the  annex  of  the  old 
Basin  Street  division  of  St.  Louis  cemetery — bears  upon 
one  side  an  inscription  in  memory  of  his  brother-in-law, 
Micajah  Lewis,  "who  fell  in  a  duel,  January  14,  1804." 

Gayarre,  in  his  history  of  Louisiana,  tells  a  story  of 
six  young  French  noblemen  who,  one  night,  paired  off 
and  fought  for  no  reason  whatever  save  out  of  bravado. 
Two  of  them  were  killed. 

Two  famous  characters  of  New  Orleans,  about  the 
middle  of  the  last  century,  were  Major  Joe  Howell,  a 
brother-in-law  of  Jefferson  Davis,  and  Major  Henry,  a 

643 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

dare-devil  soldier  of  fortune  who  had  filibustered  in 
Nicaragua  and  fought  in  the  Mexican  \\'ar.  One  day 
while  drinking  together  they  quarreled,  and  as  a  result 
a  duel  was  arranged  to  take  place  the  same  afternoon. 
Henry  kept  on  drinking,  but  Howell  went  to  sleep  and 
slept  until  it  was  time  to  go  to  the  dueling  ground,  when 
he  took  one  cocktail,  and  departed. 

Feeling  that  a  duel  over  a  disagreement  the  occasion 
for  which  neither  contestant  could  remember,  was  the 
height  of  folly,  friends  intervened,  and  finally  succeeded 
in  getting  Major  Henry  to  say  that  the  fight  could  be 
called  ofl.'  if  Howell  would  apologize. 

"For  what?"  he  was  asked. 

"Don't  know  and  don't  care,"  returned  the  old  war- 
rior. 

As  Howell  w^ould  not  apologize,  navy  revolvers  were 
produced  and  the  two  faced  each  other,  the  understand- 
ing being  that  they  should  begin  at  ten  paces  with  six 
barrels  loaded,  firing  at  will  and  advancing.  At  the 
word  "Fire!"  both  shot  and  missed,  but  Howell  cocked 
his  revolver  with  his  right  thumb  and  fired  again  im- 
mediately, wounding  Henry  in  the  arm.  Henry  then 
fired  and  missed  a  second  time,  while  Howell's  third  shot 
struck  his  antagonist  in  the  abdomen.  Wounded  as  he 
was,  Henry  managed  to  fire  again,  narrowly  missing  the 
other,  who  w^as  not  only  a  giant  in  size,  but  was  a  con- 
spicuous mark,  owing  to  the  white  clothing  which  he 
wore.  At  this  Howell  advanced  a  step  and  took  steady 
aim,  and  he  would  almost  certainly  have  killed  his  op- 

644 


HISTORY,  THE  CREOLE,  AND  HIS  DUELS 

ponent  had  not  his  own  second  reached  out  and  thrown 
his  pistol  up,  sending  the  shot  wild.  This  occurred 
after  the  other  side  has  cried  "Stop!" — as  it  had  been 
agreed  should  be  done  in  case  either  man  was  badly 
wounded.  A  foul  was  consequently  claimed,  the  sec- 
onds drew  their  pistols,  and  a  general  battle  was  nar- 
rowly averted.     After  many  weeks  Henry  recovered. 

A  great  number  of  historic  duels  were  over  politics. 
Such  a  one  was  the  fight  which  took  place  in  1843,  ^^~ 
tW'Cen  Mr.  Hueston,  editor  of  the  Baton  Rouge  "Ga- 
zette" and  Mr.  Alcee  La  Branche,  a  Creole  gentleman 
who  had  been  speaker  of  the  Louisiana  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives, and  was  running  for  Congress.  Mr.  La 
Branche  was  one  of  the  few  public  men  in  the  State 
who  had  never  fought  a  duel,  and  in  the  course  of  a  vio- 
lent political  campaign,  Hueston  twitted  him  on  this  sub- 
ject in  the  columns  of  the  "Gazette,"  trying  to  make  him 
out  a  coward.  Soon  after  the  insulting  article  ap- 
peared, the  two  men  met  in  the  billiard  room  of  the  old 
St.  Charles  Hotel,  and  when  La  Branche  demanded  an 
apology,  and  w^as  refused,  he  struck  Hueston  with  a 
cane,  or  a  cue,  and  knocked  him  down,  A  duel  was,  of 
course,  arranged,  the  weapons  selected  being  double- 
barreled  shotguns  loaded  with  ball.  At  the  first  dis- 
charge Hueston's  hat  and  coat  were  punctured  by  bul- 
lets. He  demanded  a  second  exchange  of  shots,  which 
resulted  about  as  before — his  own  shots  going  wild, 
while  those  of  his  opponent  narrowly  missed  him. 
Hueston,  however,  obstinately  insisted  that  the  duel  be 

645 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

continued,  and  the  giins  were  loaded  for  the  third  time. 
In  the  next  discharge  the  editor  received  a  scalp  wound. 
It  was  now  agreed  by  all  present  that  matters  had  gone 
far  enough,  but  Hueston  remained  obdurate  in  his  inten- 
tion to  kill  or  be  killed,  and  in  the  face  of  violent  pro- 
tests, demanded  that  the  guns  again  be  loaded.  The 
next  exchange  of  shots  proved  to  be  the  last.  Hueston 
let  both  barrels  go  without  effect,  and  fell  to  the  ground 
shot  through  the  lungs.  Taken  to  the  Maison  de  Sante, 
he  was  in  such  agony  that  he  begged  a  friend  to  finish 
the  work  by  shooting  him  through  the  head.  Within 
a  few  hours  he  was  dead. 

The  old  guide  book  from  which  I  gather  these  items 
cites,  also,  cases  in  which  duels  were  fought  over  trivial 
matters,  such,  for  instance,  as  a  mildly  hostile  news- 
paper criticism  of  an  operatic  performance,  and  an  ar- 
gument between  a  Creole  and  a  Frenchman  over  the 
greatness  of  the  Mississippi  River. 

Professor  Brander  Matthews  tells  me  of  an  episode  in 
which  the  wit  exhibited  by  a  Creole  lawyer,  in  the  course 
of  a  case  in  a  New  Orleans  court,  caused  him  to  be  chal- 
lenged. The  opposing  counsel,  likewise  a  Creole,  was 
a  great  dandy.  He  appeared  in  an  immaculate  white 
suit  and  boiled  shirt,  but  the  weather  was  warm,  and 
after  he  had  spoken  for  perhaps  half  an  hour  his  shirt 
was  wilted,  and  he  asked  an  adjournment.  The  ad- 
journment over,  he  reappeared  in  a  fresh  shirt,  but  this 
too  wilted  presently,  whereupon  another  adjournment 
was  taken.     At  the  end  of  this  he  again  reappeared 

646 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

wearing  a  third  fresh  shirt,  and  in  it  managed  to  com- 
plete his  plea. 

It  now  became  the  other  lawyer's  turn.  He  arose 
and,  speaking  with  the  utmost  gravity,  addressed  the 
jury. 

''Gentlemen,"  he  said  (Professor  Matthews  tells  it  in 
French),  'T  shall  divide  my  speech  into  three  shirts." 
He  then  announced :  "First  shirt" — and  made  his  first 
point.  This  accomplished,  he  paused  briefly,  then  pro- 
claimed: "Second  shirt,"  and  followed  with  his  second 
point.  Then:  "Third  and  last  shirt,"  and  after  com- 
pleting his  argument  sat  down.  The  delighted  jury 
gave  him  the  verdict,  but  his  witticism  involved  him  in 
a  duel  with  the  worsted  advocate.  The  result  of  this 
duel  Professor  Matthews  does  not  tell,  but  if  the  wag's 
colichemarde  was  as  swift  and  penetrating  as  his  wit, 
we  may  surmise  that  his  opponent  of  the  Code  Napoleon 
and  the  code  duello  had  a  fourth  shirt  spoiled. 


647 


CHAPTER  LVIII 
FROM  ANTIQUES  TO  PIRATES 

TIlI'l  numerous  antitiue  shops  of  the  French  (juar- 
ter,  with  their  gray,  undulating  floors  and  their 
piled-u]),  dusty  Htter  of  old  furniture,  plate, 
glass,  and  china,  and  the  equally  numerous  old  book 
stores,  with  their  piles  of  French  publications,  their 
shadowy  corners,  their  pleasant  ancient  bindings  and 
their  stale  smell,  are  peculiarly  reminiscent  of  similar 
establishments  in  Paris. 

That  Eugene  Field  knew  these  shops  well  we  have  rea- 
son to  know  by  at  least  two  of  his  poems.  In  one,  "The 
Discreet  Collector,"  he  tells  us  that: 

Down  south  there  is  a  curio  shop 

Unknown  to  many  men ; 

Thereat  do  I  intend  to  stop 

When  I  am  South  again ; 

The  narrow  street  through  which  to  go — 

Aha !     I  know  it  well ! 

And  maybe  you  would  like  to  know — 

But  no — I  will  not  tell ! 

But  later,  when  filled  wath  remorse  over  his  extrava- 
gance in  "blowing  twenty  dollars  in  by  nine  o'clock  a. 
M.,"  he  reveals  the  location  of  his  favorite  establish- 
ment, saying: 

648 


FROM  ANTIQUES  TO  PIRATES 

In  Royal  Street   (near  Conti)   there  's  a  lovely  curio  shop, 
And  there,  one  balmy  fateful  morn,  it  was  may  chance  to  stop — 

So    that,   at   least,    is   the   neighborhood   in   which   he 
learned  that : 

The  curio  collector  is  so  blindly  lost  in  sin 

That  he  does  n't  spend  his  money — he  simply  blows  it  in ! 

In  his  verses  called  "Doctor  Sam,"  Field  touched  on 
another  fascinating  side  of  Creole  negro  life :  the  mys- 
terious beliefs  and  rites  of  voodooism — or,  as  it  is  more 
often  spelled,  voudouism. 

Until  a  few  years  ago  it  used  to  be  possible  for  a  vis- 
itor with  a  ''pull"  in  New  Orleans  to  see  some  of  the 
voudou  performances  and  to  have  "a  work  made"  for 
him,  but  the  police  have  dealt  so  severely  with  those  who 
believe  in  this  barbarous  nonsense,  that  it  is  practised  in 
these  times  only  with  the  utmost  secrecy. 

Voudouism  was  brought  by  the  early  slaves  from  the 
Congo,  but  in  Louisiana  the  negroes — probably  desiring 
to  imitate  the  religion  of  their  white  masters — appro- 
priated some  of  the  Roman  Catholic  saints  and  made 
them  subject  to  the  Great  Serpent,  or  Grand  Zombi,  who 
is  the  voudou  god.  These  saints,  however,  are  given 
voudou  names,  St.  Michael,  for  example,  being  Blanc 
Dani,  and  St.  Peter,  Papa  Liba.  This,  situation  is  the 
antithesis  of  that  to  be  found  in  Brittany,  where  Druidi- 
cal  beliefs,  handed  down  for  generations  among  the 
peasants,  may  now  be  faintly  traced  running  like  on  odd 
alien  threads  through  the  strong  fabric  of  Roman  Cath- 
olicism. 

649 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

Voudouism  is  not,  however,  to  he  dignified  l)y  the 
name  "rehgion."  It  is  superstition  founded  upon 
charms  and  hoodoos.  It  is  witchcraft  of  the  maddest 
kind,  involving  the  most  hideous  performances.  More- 
over, it  is  said  that  a  hoodoo  is  something  of  which  a 
French  negro  is  very  much  afraid,  and  that  his  fear  is 
justifiable,  for  the  reason  that  the  throwing  of  a  wanga, 
or  curse,  may  also  involve  the  administering  of  subtle 
poisons  made  from  herbs. 

Legend  is  rich  with  stories  of  Marie  Le  Veau,  the 
voudou  queen,  w^ho  lived  long  ago  in  New  Orleans,  and 
of  love  and  death  accomplished  by  means  of  voudou 
charms.  Charms  are  brouc^ht  about  in  various  wavs. 
Among  these  the  burning  of  black  candles,  accompanied 
by  certain  performances,  brings  evil  upon  those  against 
whom  a  "work"  is  made,  while  blue  candles  have  to  do 
with  love  charms.  It  may  also  be  noted  that  'iove 
powders"  can  be  purchased  now-a-days  in  drug  stores 
in  New  Orleans. 

In  the  days  of  long  ago  the  great  negro  gathering 
place  used  to  be  Congo  Square — now  Beauregard 
Square — and  here,  on  Sunday  nights,  w^ild  dances  used 
to  occur — the  "bamboula"  and  "calinda" — and  sinister 
spells  were  cast.  Later  the  voudous  went  to  more  se- 
cluded spots  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Pontchartrain,  and 
on  St.  John's  Eve,  w^hich  is  their  great  occasion,  many 
of  the  w^hites  of  the  city  used  to  go  to  the  lake  in  hopes 
of  discovering  a  voudou  seance,  and  being  allowed  to 
see  it.     A  friend  of  mine,  who  has  seen  several  of  these 

650 


FROM  ANTIQUES  TO  PIRATES 

seances,  says  that  they  are  unbelievably  weird  and  hor- 
rible. They  will  make  a  gombo,  put  a  snake  in  it,  and 
then  devour  it,  and  they  will  wring  a  cat's  neck  and  drink 
its  blood.  And  of  course,  along  with  these  loathsome 
ceremonies,  go  incantations,  chants,  dances,  and  frenzies, 
sometimes  ending  in  catalepsis. 

There  are  weird  stories  of  white  women  of  good  fam- 
ily who  have  believed  in  voudou,  and  have  taken  part  in 
the  rites;  and  there  are  other  tales  of  evil  spells,  such  as 
that  of  the  Creole  bride  of  long  ago,  whose  affianced  had 
been  the  lover  of  a  quadroon  girl,  a  hairdresser.  The 
hairdresser  when  she  came  to  do  the  bride's  hair  for  the 
wedding,  gave  her  a  bouquet  of  flowers.  The  bride 
smelled  the  bouquet — and  died  at  the  church  door. 

It  was,  I  think,  in  an  old  book  store  on  Royal  Street — 
or  else  on  Chartres — that  I  found  the  tattered  guide 
book  to  which  I  referred  in  an  earlier  chapter.  It  was 
''edited  and  compiled  by  several  leading  writers  of  the 
New  Orleans  Press,"  and  published  in  1885,  and  it  con- 
tains an  introductory  recommendation  by  George  W. 
Cable— which  is  about  the  finest  guarantee  that  a  book 
on  New  Orleans  can  have. 

Mr.  Cable,  of  course,  more  than  all  the  rest  of  the  peo- 
ple who  have  written  of  New  Orleans  put  together, 
placed  the  city  definitely  in  literature.  And  it  is  inter- 
esting, if  somewhat  saddening,  to  recall  that  for  lifting 
the  city  into  the  world  of  belles  lettres,  for  adorning  it 
and  preserving  it  in  such  volumes  as  "Old  Creole  Days," 
"The  Grandissimes,"  "Madame  Delphine,"  and  other 

651 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

valuable,  truthful,  and  charming  works,  he  was  roundly 
abused  by  his  own  fellow-townsmen.  Far  from  attack- 
ing Mr.  Cable,  New  Orleans  ought  to  build  him  a  monu- 
ment, and  I  am  glad  to  say  that,  though  the  monument  is 
not  there  yet,  the  city  does  seem  to  have  come  to  its 
senses,  and  that  the  prophet  is  no  longer  without  honor 
in  his  own  country. 

Some  further  leaves  are  added  to  the  literary  laurels 
of  the  city  by  what  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich  has  written 
of  it,  and  the  wreath  is  made  the  greater  by  the  fact  that 
in  New  Orleans  was  born  ''the  only  literary  man  in  New 
York,"  Professor  Brander  Matthews. 

Another  distinguished  name  in  letters,  connected  with 
the  place,  is  that  of  Lafcadio  Ilearn,  who  was  at  one 
time  a  reporter  on  a  New  Orleans  newspaper,  and  who 
not  only  wrote  about  the  French  quarter,  but  collected 
many  proverbs  of  the  Creoles  in  a  book  which  he  called 
"Combo  Zebes."  In  his  little  volume,  "Chita,"  Hearn 
described  the  land  of  lakes,  bayous,  and  chcnicres,  which 
forms  a  strip  between  the  city  and  the  Gulf,  and  which, 
with  its  wald  birds,  wild  scenery,  and  wild  storms,  and  its 
extraordinary  population  of  hunters  and  fishermen — 
Cajuns,  Italians,  Japanese,  Spanish,  Kanakas,  Filipinos, 
French,  and  half-breed  Indians,  all  intermarrying — is 
the  strangest,  most  outlandish  section  of  this  country 
I  have  ever  visited.  The  Filipinos,  who  introduced 
shrimp  fishing  in  this  region,  building  villages  on  stilts, 
like  those  of  their  own  islands,  were  not  there  when 
Hearn  wrote  "Chita,"  nor  was  Ludwig  raising  diamond- 

652 


FROM  ANTIQUES  TO  PIRATES 

back  terrapin  on  Grand  Isle,  but  the  live-oaks,  draped 
with  sad  Spanish  moss,  lined  the  bayous  as  they  do  to- 
day, and  the  alligators,  turtles  and  snakes  were  there, 
and  the  tall  marsh  grass,  so  like  bamboo,  fringed  the 
banks  as  it  does  now,  and  water  hyacinth  carpeted  the 
pools,  and  the  savage  tropical  storms  came  sweeping  in, 
now  and  then,  from  the  Gulf,  flooding  the  entire  coun- 
try, tearing  everything  up  by  the  roots,  then  receding, 
carrying  the  floating  debris  back  with  them  to  the  salt 
sea.  One  has  to  see  what  they  call  a  "slight"  storm,  in 
that  country,  to  know  what  a  great  storm  there  must  be. 
Hearn  surely  saw  storms  there,  for  in  ''Chita"  he 
describes  with  terrifying  vividness  that  historic  tempest 
which,  in  1856,  obliterated,  at  one  stroke.  Last  Island, 
with  its  fashionable  hotel  and  all  the  guests  of  that  hotel. 
I  have  seen  a  "little"  thunderstorm  in  Barataria  Bay 
and  I  do  not  want  to  see  a  big  one.  I  have  seen  brown 
men  who,  in  the  storm  of  191 5  (which  did  a  million  dol- 
lars' worth  of  damage  in  New  Orleans),  floated  about 
the  Baratarias  for  days,  upon  the  roofs  of  houses,  and  I 
have  seen  little  children,  half  Italian,  half  Filipino,  who 
were  saved  by  being  carried  by  their  parents  into  the 
branches  of  an  old  live-oak,  where  they  waited  until  good 
Horace  Harvey,  "the  little  father  of  the  Baratarias," 
came  down  there  in  his  motor  yacht,  the  Destrehan, 
rescued  them,  warmed  them,  fed  them,  and  gave  them 
back  to  life.  I  was  told  in  New  Orleans  that  there  were 
ten  seconds  in  that  storm  when  the  wind  reached  a  ve- 
locity of  140  miles  per  hour  at  the  mouth  of  the  Missis- 

653 


A.MERICAN  ADX^KXTL'RKS 

sii)pi,  that  it  blew  fur  four  Ikjuts  al  the  rate  of  90  miles, 
and  that  the  lowest  barometrical  reading  ever  recorded 
in  the  United  States  (j8.i  i)  was  recorded  in  Xew  (Or- 
leans during  this  hurricane. 

Of  the  summer  climate  of  New  Orleans  1  know  noth- 
ing at  first  hand,  and  judging  from  what  people  have 
told  me,  that  is  all  1  want  to  know.  The  winter  climate 
suited  me  very  well  while  I  was  there,  although  the  boast 
that  grass  is  green  and  roses  bloom  all  the  year  round, 
does  not  imply  such  intense  heat  as  some  people  may 
suppose.  Furthermore,  I  believe  that  the  thermometer 
has  once  or  twice  in  the  history  of  the  city  dropped  low 
enough  to  kill  any  ordinary  rose,  for  a  friend  of  mine 
told  me  a  story  about  some  water  pipes  that  froze  and 
burst  during  an  unprecedented  cold  snap  which  occurred 
some  years  ago.  He  said  that  an  English  colonel,  whom 
he  knew,  was  visiting  the  city  at  the  time  and  that,  find- 
ing himself  unable  to  get  water  in  his  bathtub,  he  sent  out 
for  several  cases  of  Apollinaris,  and  with  true  British 
phlegm  proceeded  to  empty  them  into  the  tub  and  get 
in  among  the  bubbles. 

Still  another  figure  having  to  do  with  literature,  and 
also  with  the  history  of  New  Orleans,  is  Jean  Lafitte. 
known  as  a  pirate,  whose  life  is  said  to  have  inspired 
Byron's  poem,  "The  Corsair."  There  was  a  time,  long 
ago,  when  Lafitte,  together  with  his  brother,  his 
doughty  lieutenant,  Dominique  You,  and  his  rabble  of 
Baratarians,  caused  New  Orleans  a  great  deal  of  an- 
noyance, but  like  many  other  doubtful  characters,  they 

654 


FROM  ANTIQUES  TO  PIRATES 

have,  since  their  death,  become  entirely  picturesque,  and 
the  very  idea  that  Lafitte  was  not  a  first-class  blood-and- 
thunder  pirate  is  as  distasteful  to  the  people  of  New  Or- 
leans to-day,  as  his  being  any  kind  of  a  near-pirate  at 
all,  used  to  be  to  their  ancestors.  Nevertheless  Frank 
R.  Stockton,  who  made  a  great  specialty  of  pirates,  says 
of  Lafitte:  "He  never  committed  an  act  of  piracy  in 
his  life;  he  was  [before  he  went  to  Barataria]  a  black- 
smith, and  knew  no  more  about  sailing  a  ship  or  even 
the  smallest  kind  of  a  boat  than  he  knew  about  the 
proper  construction  of  a  sonnet.  ...  It  is  said  of  him 
that  he  was  never  at  sea  but  twice  in  his  life :  once  when 
he  came  from  France,  and  once  w^hen  he  left  this  coun- 
try, and  on  neither  occasion  did  he  sail  under  the  Jolly 
Roger.  According  to  Stockton,  Lafitte,  when  he  gave 
up  his  blacksmith  shop  ( in  which  he  is  said  to  have  made 
some  of  the  fine  wrought  iron  balcony  railings  which 
still  adorn  the  old  town),  and  went  to  Barataria,  be- 
came nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  "fence"  for  pirates 
and  privateers,  taking  their  booty,  smuggling  it  up  to 
New  Orleans,  and  selling  it  there  on  commission. 

But  if  the  fact  that  he  was  not  a  gory-handed  free- 
booter is  against  Lafitte,  there  is  one  great  thing  in 
his  favor.  When  the  British  were  making  ready  to 
attack  New  Orleans  in  1814,  they  tried  both  to  bribe  and 
to  browbeat  Lafitte  into  joining  forces  with  them.  As 
the  American  government  was  planning,  at  this  very 
time,  a  punitive  expedition  against  him,  it  would  per- 
haps have  seemed  good  policy  for  the  pseudo-pirate  to 

655 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

have  accepted  the  British  offer,  but  what  Lafltte  did  was 
to  go  up  and  report  the  matter  at  New  Orleans,  giving 
the  city  the  first  authentic  information  of  the  contem- 
plated attack,  and  offering  to  join  with  his  men  in  the 
defense,  in  exchange  for  amnesty. 

A  good  many  people,  however,  did  not  believe  his 
story,  and  a  good  many  others  thought  it  beneath  the 
dignity  of  the  go\-ernment  to  treat  with  a  man  of  his 
dubious  occupation.  Therefore  poor  Lafitte  was  not 
listened  to,  but,  upon  the  contrary,  only  succeeded  in 
stirring  up  trouble  for  himself,  for  an  expedition  was 
immediately  sent  against  him;  his  settlement  at  Bara- 
taria — on  the  gulf,  about  forty  miles  below  the  city — 
was  demolished  and  the  inhabitants  driven  to  the  woods 
and  swamps. 

But  in  spite  of  this  discouraging  experience,  Lafitte 
would  not  join  the  British,  and  it  came  about  that  when 
the  Battle  of  New  Orleans  was  about  to  be  fought, 
Andrew  Jackson,  who  had  a  short  time  before  referred 
to  Lafitte  and  his  men  as  a  band  of  "hellish  banditti," 
was  glad  to  accept  their  aid.  Dominique  Vou — with 
his  fine  pirate  name — commanded  a  gim,  and  the  others 
fought  according  to  the  best  piratical  tradition.  After 
the  battle  w^as  won,  the  Baratarians  were  pardoned  by 
President  Madison.  Incidentally  it  may  be  remarked 
here  that  the  American  line  of  defense  on  the  plains  of 
Chalmette,  below  the  city,  had  been  indicated  some  years 
before  by  the  French  General  Moreau,  hero  of  Hohen- 

656 


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FROM  ANTIQUES  TO  PIRATES 

linden,  as  the  proper  strategic  position  for  safeguarding 
New  Orleans  on  the  south. 

Even  after  he  had  been  pardoned,  Lafitte  felt,  not 
without  some  justice,  that  he  had  been  ill-used  by  the 
Americans,  and  because  of  this  he  determined  to  leave 
the  country.  He  set  sail  with  a  band  of  his  followers 
for  other  climes,  but  what  became  of  them  is  not  known. 
Some  think  their  ship  went  down  in  a  storm  which 
crossed  the  Gulf  soon  after  their  departure;  others  be- 
lieve that  they  reached  Yucatan,  and  that  Lafitte  died 
there.  Whatever  his  fate,  he  did  not  improve  it  by 
departing  from  New  Orleans,  for  had  he  not  done  so 
he  would,  at  the  end,  have  been  given  a  handsome  burial 
and  a  nice  monument  like  that  of  Dominique  You — 
which  may  be  seen  to  this  day  in  the  old  cemetery  on 
Claiborne  Avenue,  between  Iberville  and  St.  Louis 
Streets. 

Having  disposed  of  literary  men  and  pirates,  we  now 
come  in  logical  sequence  to  composers  and  actors.  Be 
it  known,  then,  that  E.  H.  Sothern  first  raised,  in  the 
house  at  79  Bienville  Street,  the  voice  which  has 
charmed  us  in  the  theater,  and  that  Louis  Gottschalk, 
composer  of  the  almost  too  well-know  "Last  Hope,"  was 
also  born  in  New  Orleans. 

The  records  of  the  opera  and  the  theater  might,  in 
themselves,  make  a  chapter.  As  early  as  1791  a  French 
theatrical  company  played  in  New  Orleans,  using  halls, 
and  in  1808  a  theater  was  built  in  St.  Philip  Street.     It 

657 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

is  said  that  the  first  play  given  in  the  city  in  EngHsh  was 
performed  December  24,  181 7,  the  play  being  "The 
Honey  Moon,"  and  the  manager  Noah  M.  Ludlow ;  but 
it  was  not  until  some  years  later  that  the  English  drama 
became  a  feature  of  the  city's  life,  with  the  establish- 
ment of  a  stock  company  under  the  management  of 
James  H.  Caldwell.  Edwin  Forrest  appeared,  in  1824, 
with  Mr.  Caldwell's  company  at  the  Camp  Street  Thea- 
ter, which  he  built  on  leaving  the  Orleans  Theater.  The 
former  w^as,  when  opened,  out  in  the  swamp,  and  peo- 
ple had  to  walk  to  it  from  Canal  Street  on  a  narrow  path 
of  planks.  It  was  the  first  building  in  the  city  to  be 
lighted  b}'^  gas. 

The  annals  of  the  old  St.  Charles  theater,  called  ''old 
Drury,"  are  rich  with  history.  Practically  all  our 
great  players  from  1835  until  long  after  the  Civil  War, 
appeared  in  this  theater,  and  an  old  prompter's  book 
w^iich,  I  believe,  is  still  in  existence,  records,  among 
many  other  things,  certain  details  of  the  appearance 
there,  in  1852,  of  Junius  Brutus  Booth,  father  of  Edwin 
Booth,  and  mentions  also  that  Joseph  Jefferson  (Sr.) 
then  a  young  man,  was  reprimanded  for  being  noisy  in 
his  dressing-room. 

New  Orleans  was,  I  believe,  the  first  American  city 
regularly  to  support  grand  opera  and  to  give  it  a  home. 
For  a  great  many  years  before  1859  (in  which  year 
the  present  French  Opera  House  on  Bourbon  Street  was 
built)  there  was  a  regular  annual  season  of  opera  at 
the  Orleans  Theater,  long  since  destroyed. 

658 


FROM  ANTIQUES  TO  PIRATES 

In  the  days  of  the  city's  operatic  grandeur  great  sing- 
ers used  to  visit  New  Orleans  before  visiting  New  York, 
as  witness,  for  example,  the  debut  at  the  French  Opera 
House  of  Adelina  Patti.  Since  the  time  of  the  Civil 
War,  however,  the  city  has  suffered  a  decline  in  this 
department  of  art.  Opera  seasons  have  not  been  regu- 
lar, and  in  spite  of  occasional  attempts  to  revive  the 
old-time  spirit,  the  ancient  Opera  House,  with  its  brave 
columned  front,  its  cracking  veneer  of  stucco,  and  its 
surrounding  of  little  vari-colored  one  story  cafes  and 
shops  (which  are  themselves  like  bits  of  operatic  scen- 
ery), does  not  so  much  suggest  to  the  imagination  a 
home  of  modern  opera,  as  a  mournful  mortuary  chapel 
haunted  by  the  ghosts  of  old  half-forgotten  composers : 
Herold,  Spontini,  Mehul,  Varney;  old  conductors,  long 
since  gone  to  dust :  Prevost,  John,  Calabresi ;  old  arias 
of  Meyerbeer,  Auber,  and  Donizetti;  and  above  all,  by 
the  ghosts  of  pretty  pirouetting  ballerinas,  and  of  great 
singers  whose  voices  have,  these  many  years,  been  still. 

An  old  lady  who  knew  Louisiana  in  the  forties  and 
fifties,  has  left  record  of  the  fact  that  plantation  negroes 
used  to  know  and  sing  the  French  operatic  airs,  just  as 
the  Italian  peasants  of  to-day  know  and  sing  the  music 
of  Puccini  and  Leoncavallo.  But  if  opera  no  longer 
reaches  the  negro,  it  cannot  be  said  that  it  has  failed  to 
leave  its  stamp  on  the  French  quarter.  From  open  win- 
dows and  doors,  from  little  shops  and  half-hidden  court- 
yards, from  shuttered  second  story  galleries,  there  comes 
floating  to  the  ears  of  the  wayfarer  the  sound  of  music. 

659 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

In  one  house  a  piano  is  being  played  with  dash;  in  an- 
other a  child  is  practising  her  scales;  from  still  another 
comes  a  soprano  voice,  the  sad  whistling  of  a  tliite,  the 
tinkle  of  a  guitar,  or  the  anguished  squeal  of  a  tortured 
violin.  Never  except  in  Naples  have  I  heard,  on  one 
block,  so  many  musical  instruments  independently  at 
work,  as  in  some  single  blocks  of  the  vieux  carrc;  and 
never  anywhere  have  I  seen  a  sign  which  struck  as  more 
expressive  of  the  industries  of  a  locality,  than  that  one 
which  T  saw  near  the  house  of  Alme.  Lalurie,  which 
read:     "Odd  Jobs  Done,  and  Music." 

The  reason  for  this  musical  congestion  is  twofold. 
Not  only  is  the  Creole  a  great  lover  of  good  light  music, 
but  the  whole  region  for  blocks  about  the  Opera  House 
is  populated  by  old  musicians  from  the  opera's  orches- 
tra, and  women,  some  middle  aged,  some  old,  who  used 
to  be  in  the  ballet  or  the  chorus,  and  who  not  only  keep 
alive  the  musical  tradition  of  the  district,  but  pass  it  on 
to  the  younger  generation.  Indeed  there  are  almost  as 
many  places  in  the  French  quarter  where  music  may  be 
heard,  as  where  stories  are  told. 

In  one  street  may  be  seen  a  house  where  the  troubles 
with  the  ]\Iafia  began.  On  a  corner — the  southeast 
corner  of  Royal  and  St.  Peter — is  shown  the  house  in 
which  Cable's  "  'Sieur  George"  resided.  This  house  is, 
I  believe,  the  same  one  which,  when  erected,  caused  peo- 
ple to  move  away  from  its  immediate  neighborhood,  for 
fear  that  its  height  w^ould  cause  it  to  fall  down.  It 
is  a  four  story  house — the  first  built  in  the  city.     At  the 

660 


FROM  ANTIQUES  TO  PIRATES 

southeast  corner  of  Royal  and  Hospital  Streets  stands 
that  "haunted"  house  of  Mme.  Lalaurie,  who  fled  the 
town  when  indignation  was  aroused  because  of  devil- 
ish tortures  she  inflicted  on  her  slaves.  This  house  is 
now  an  Italian  tenement,  but  even  in  its  decay  it  will  be 
recognized  as  a  mansion  which,  in  its  day,  was  fit  to 
house  such  guests  as  Louis  Philippe,  Lafayette,  and  Ney. 
A  guest  even  more  distinguished  than  these,  was  to  have 
been  housed  in  the  mansion  at  the  northeast  corner  of 
St.  Louis  and  Chartres  Streets,  for  the  Creoles  had  a 
plan  to  rescue  Napoleon  from  St.  Helena  and  bring  him 
here,  and  had  this  house  prepared  to  receive  him. 

And  are  we  to  forget  where  Andrew  Jackson  was  en- 
tertained before  and  after  the  Battle  of  New  Orleans— 
where  General  Beauregard,  military  idol  of  the  Creoles, 
resided — where  Paul  Morphy  the  "chess  king"  lived— 
where  General  Butler  took  up  his  quarters  when,  in 
1862,  under  the  guns  of  Farragut's  fleet,  the  city  sur- 
rendered—  ?  Shall  we  fail  to  visit  the  curious  old  tene- 
ments and  stables  surrounding  the  barnyard  which  once 
was  the  remise  of  the  old  Orleans  Hotel?  Shall  we 
neglect  old  Metaire  cemetery,  with  its  graves  built  above 
ground  in  the  days  when  drainage  was  less  perfect? 
Shall  we  fail  to  go  to  the  levee  (pronounced  "levvy") 
and  see  the  savage  flood  of  the  muddy  Mississippi  cours- 
ing toward  the  gulf  behind  the  embankment  which  alone 
saves  the  city  from  inundation?  Shall  we  ignore  the 
French  Market  with  its  clean  stalls  piled  with  fresh 
vegetables,  sea  food,  and  all  manner  of  comestibles,  in- 

661 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

eluding  Hie  for  the  glorious  Creole  gombo.  Shall  we 
not  view  the  picturesque  if  sinister  old  Absinthe  House, 
dating  from  1799,  with  its  court  and  stairway  so  full 
of  mysterious  suggestion,  and  its  misty  paregoric- 
flavored  beverage,  containing  opalescent  dreams  ?  Shall 
we  not  go  to  Sazerac's  for  a  cocktail,  or  to  Ramos'  for 
one  of  those  delectable  gin-fizzes  suggesting  an  Olym- 
pian soda-fountain  drink?  Are  we  to  ignore  all  these 
wonders  of  the  city? 

Yes,  for  it  is  time  to  go  to  luncheon  at  Antoine's! 


662 


CHAPTER  LIX 
ANTOINE'S  AND  MARDI  GRAS 

ANTOINE'S  is  to  me  one  of  the  four  or  five  most 
satisfactory  restaurants  in  the  United  States, — 
two  of  the  others  being  the  Louisiane  and  Gala- 
toire's.  But  one  has  one's  sHg-ht  preferences  in  these 
things;  and  just  as  I  have  a  feeling  that  the  cuisine  of  the 
Hotel  St.  Regis  in  New  York  surpasses,  just  a  Httle  bit, 
that  of  any  other  eating  place  in  the  city,  I  have  a  feeling 
about  Antoine's  in  New  Orleans.  This  is  not,  perhaps, 
with  me,  altogether  a  culinary  matter,  for  whereas  I 
remember  delightful  meals  at  the  Louisiane  and  Gala- 
toire's — meals  which,  indeed,  could  hardly  be  surpassed 
— I  lived  for  a  week  at  Antoine's,  and  felt  at  home  there, 
and  became  peculiarly  attached  to  the  quaint,  rambling 
old  restaurant,  up  stairs  and  down. 

Antoine's  has  never  been  "fixed  up."  The  cafe  makes 
one  think  of  such  old  Parisian  restaurants  as  the  Boeuf 
a  la  Mode,  or  the  Tour  d'  Argent.  Far  from  being  a 
showy  place,  it  is  utterly  simple  in  its  decorations  and 
equipment,  but  if  there  is  in  this  country  a  restaurant 
more  French  than  Antoine's,  I  do  not  know  where  that 
restaurant  is. 

Antoine  Alciatore,  founder  of  the  establishment,  de- 

663 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

parted  nearly  forty  years  ago  to  the  realms  to  which 
great  chefs  are  ultimately  taken.  Coming  from  France 
as  a  young  man  he  established  himself  in  a  small  cafe 
opposite  the  slave  market,  where  he  proceeded  to  cook 
and  let  his  cooking  speak  for  him.  His  dinde  a  la  Talley- 
rand soon  made  him  famous,  and  he  prospered,  moving 
before  long  to  the  present  building.  His  sons,  Jules  and 
Fernand,  were  sent  to  Paris  to  learn  at  headquarters  the 
best  traditions  of  the  haute  cuisine,  doing  service  as 
apprentices  in  such  establishments  as  the  Maison  d'Or 
and  l>rabant's.  Jules  is  now  proprietor  of  Antoine's, 
while  Fernand  is  master  of  the  Louisiane. 

The  two  brothers  are  of  somewhat  different  type. 
Fernand  is,  above  all,  a  chef;  I  have  never  seen  him  out- 
side his  own  kitchen.  His  son,  Fernand  Jr.,  superin- 
tends the  front  part  of  the  Louisiane,  which  he  has 
transformed  into  a  place  having  the  appearance  of  a 
New  York  restaurant.  The  young  man  has  made  a 
successful  bid  for  the  fashionable  patronage  of  New 
Orleans,  and  there  is  dancing  in  the  Louisiane  in  the 
evening.  Jules,  upon  the  other  hand,  is  perhaps  more 
the  director  than  his  brother  Fernand — more  the  suave 
delightful  host,  less  the  man  of  cap  and  apron.  Jules 
loves  to  give  parties — to  astonish  his  guests  with  a  bril- 
liant dinner  and  with  his  unrivaled  grace  as  gerant. 
That  he  is  able  to  do  these  things  no  one  is  better  aware 
than  my  companion  and  I,  for  it  was  our  good  fortune 
to  be  accepted  by  Jules  as  friends  and  fellow  artists. 

Never  while  my  companion  and  I  lived  at  Antoine's 

664 


s 


1 


O 


I 


V(.    <* 


ANTOINE'S  AND  MARDI  GRAS 

did  we  escape  the  feeling  that  we  were  not  in  the  United 
States,  but  in  some  foreign  land.  To  go  to  his  rooms 
he  went  upstairs,  around  a  corner,  down  a  few  steps, 
past  a  pantry,  and  a  back  stairway  by  which  savory 
smells  ascended  from  the  kitchen,  along  a  latticed  gal- 
lery overlooking  a  courtyard  like  that  of  some  inn  in 
Segovia,  along  another  gallery  running  at  right  angles 
to  the  first  and  overlooking  the  same  court,  including 
the  kitchen  door  and  the  laundry,  and  finally  to  a  cham- 
ber with  French  doors,  a  canopied  bed,  and  French  win- 
dows opening  upon  a  balcony  that  overlooked  the  side 
street.  His  room  was  called  ''The  Creole  Yacht,"  while 
mine  was  the  "Maison  Vert." 

I  remember  a  room  in  that  curious  little  hotel  opposite 
the  Cafe  du  Dome,  in  Paris  (the  hotel  in  which  it  is  said 
Whistler  stayed  when  he  was  a  student),  which  almost 
exactly  resembled  my  room  at  Antoine's,  even  to  the 
dust  which  was  under  the  bed — until  'Genie  got  to  work 
with  broom  and  brush.  Moreover,  connected  with  my 
room  there  was  a  bath  which  actually  had  a  chaufbain 
to  heat  the  water:  one  of  those  weird  French  machines 
resembling  the  engine  of  a  steam  launch,  which  pops 
savagely  when  you  light  the  gas  beneath  it,  and  which, 
as  you  are  always  expecting  it  to  blow  up  and  destroy 
you,  converts  the  morning  ablutions  from  a  perfunctory 
duty  into  a  great  adventure. 

Then  too,  there  was  Marie  who  has  attended  to  the 
Huge  at  Antoine's  for  the  last  fifty  years,  and  who  helped 
the  gray-haired  genial   Eugenie  to  "make  proper  the 

665 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

rooms."  Ever  since  'Genie — as  she  is  called,  for  short 
— came  from  her  native  Midi,  she  has  been  at  Antoine's; 
and  like  Francois — the  gentle,  kindly,  whitc-mustached 
old  waiter  who,  when  we  were  there,  had  just  moved  up 
to  Antoine's  after  thirty-five  years'  service  at  the  Louis- 
iane — 'Genie  is  always  ready  with  a  smile;  yes,  even  in 
the  rush  of  Mardi  Gras! 

Antoine's  does  not  set  up  to  be  a  regular  hotel,  and  we 
stopped  there  because,  during  the  carnival,  all  rooms  in 
the  large  modern  hotels  across  Canal  Street  were  taken. 
The  carnival  rush  made  room-service  at  Antoine's  a  lit- 
tle slow,  now  and  then ;  sometimes  the  bell  would  not  be 
answered  when  we  rang  for  breakfast;  or  again,  our 
morning  coffee  and  croissants  would  be  forty  minutes 
on  the  way;  sometimes  we  became  a  little  bit  impatient 
— though  we  could  never  bring  ourselves  to  say  so  to 
such  amiable  servitors.  As  a  result,  when  w-e  were  leav- 
ing the  city  for  a  little  trip,  we  determined  to  stay,  on 
our  return,  at  the  Grunewald,  a  hotel  like  any  one  of  a 
hundred  others  in  the  United  States — marble  lobbies, 
gold  ceilings,  rathskellers,  cabaret  shows,  dancing,  and 
page  boys  w^andering  through  the  corridors  and  dining- 
rooms,  calling  in  nasal,  sing-song  voices:  ''Mis-ter 
SJioss-iuttl  Mis-tev  Ahm-kaploppsl  Mis-ter  Praggle- 
fiss!     Mis-tev  Blahms!" 

\\'e  did  return  and  go  to  the  Grunewald.  But  com- 
fortable as  we  were  made  there,  we  had  to  own  to  each 
other  that  we  missed  Antoine's.  We  missed  our  curious 
old  rooms.     I  even  missed  my  chaufhain,  and  was  bored 

666 


ANTOINE'S  AND  MARDI  GRAS 

at  the  commonplace  matutinal  performance  of  turning 
on  hot  water  without  preliminary  experiments  in  marine 
engineering.  We  thought  wistfully  of  'Genie's  patient 
smile,  and  of  her  daily  assurance  to  us,  when  we  went 
out,  that  "when  she  had  made  the  apartments  she 
would  render  the  key  to  the  bureau,  dors," — which  is  to 
say,  leave  the  key  at  the  office.  We  yearned  for  the 
cafe,  for  good  Francois,  for  the  deliciously  flavored  oys- 
ters cooked  on  the  half-shell  and  served  on  a  pan  of  hot 
rock-salt  which  kept  them  warm ;  for  the  cold  tomatoes 
a  la  Jules  Cesar;  for  the  bisque  of  crayfish  a  la  Cardinal; 
for  the  bouillibasse  (which  Thackeray  admitted  w^as  as 
good  in  New  Orleans  as  in  Marseilles,  and  which  Otis 
Skinner  says  is  better);  for  the  unrivaled  gombo  a  la 
Creole,  and  pompano  ew  Papillotte,  and  pressed  duck  a 
la  Tour  d' Argent,  and  orange  Brulot,  and  the  wonderful 
Cafe  Brulot  Diabolique — that  spiced  coffee  made  in  a 
silver  bowl  from  which  emerge  the  blue  flames  of  burn- 
ing cognac,  and  in  honor  of  which  the  lights  of  the  cafe 
are  always  temporarily  dimmed. 

Nor  least  of  all  was  it  that  we  wished  to  see  again  the 
mother  of  Jules,  who  sits  back  of  the  caisse  and  takes  in 
the  money,  like  many  another  good  French  wife  and 
mother — a  tiny  little  old  lady  more  than  ninety-five 
years  old,  who  came  to  New  Orleans  in  1840  as  the  bride 
of  the  then  young  Antoine  Alciatore. 

So  we  put  on  our  hats  and  coats  when  evening  came, 
and  went  back  to  Antoine's  for  dinner,  and  as  long  as 
we  were  in  New  Orleans  we  kept  on  going  back. 

667 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

That  is  not  to  say,  of  course,  that  we  did  not  go  also 
to  the  Louisiane  and  Galatoire's,  or  that  we  did  not  drop 
in  for  luncheon,  sometimes,  at  Brasco's,  in  Gravier 
Street,  or  at  Kolb's,  a  more  or  less  conventional  German 
restaurant  in  St.  Charles  Street ;  or  that  we  failed  to  g-o 
out  to  Tranchina's  at  Spanish  Fort,  on  Lake  Pontchar- 
train,  or  to  the  quainter  little  place  called  Noy's  where,  we 
learned,  Ernest  Peixotto  had  been  l)ut  a  short  time  be- 
fore, gathering  material  for  indigestion  and  an  article 
in  "Scribner's  Magazine."  lUit  when  all  is  said  and 
done  there  remain  the  three  restaurants  of  the  old  quar- 
ter. 

I  should  like  to  give  some  history  of  Galatoire's  as 
well  as  of  the  other  two,  but  when  I  asked  the  patron  for 
the  story  of  his  restaurant,  he  smiled,  and  with  a  shrug 
replied:     "But  Monsieur,  the  story  is  in  the  food!" 

Do  not  expect  any  of  these  places  to  present  the  bril- 
liant appearance  of  distinguished  New  York  restau- 
rants. They  are  comparatively  simple,  all  of  them,  and 
are  engaged  not  with  soft  carpets  and  gilt  ceilings,  but 
with  the  art  of  cookery. 

I  have  been  told  that  some  of  them  have  what  may  be 
termed  "tourist  cooking,"  which  is  not  their  best,  but  if 
you  know  good  food,  and  let  them  know  you  know  it,  and 
if  you  visit  them  at  any  time  except  during  the  carnival, 
then  you  have  a  right  to  expect  in  any  one  of  these  es- 
tablishments, a  superb  dinner.  For  as  T  once  heard  my 
friend  Col.  Beverly  Myles,  one  of  the  city's  most  dis- 
tinguished gourmets,  remark:     "To  talk  of  'tolerably 

668 


ANTOINE'S  AND  MARDI  GRAS 

good  food'  in  a  French  restaurant  is  like  talking  of  'a 
tolerably  honest  man.'  " 

The  carnival  of  Mardi  Gras  and  the  several  days  pre- 
ceding, is  one  of  those  things  about  which  I  feel  as  I  do 
concerning  Niagara  Falls,  and  gambling  houses,  and 
the  red  light  district  of  Butte,  Montana,  and  the  under- 
ground levels  of  a  mine,  and  the  world  as  seen  from  an 
aeroplane,  and  the  Ouatres  Arts  ball,  and  a  bull  fight — 
I  am  glad  to  have  seen  it  once,  but  I  have  no  desire  to 
see  it  again.  During  the  carnival  my  companion  and 
I  enjoyed  a  period  of  sleepless  gaiety.  To  be  sure,  we 
went  to  bed  every  morning,  but  what  is  the  use  in  doing 
that  if  you  also  get  up  every  morning?  We  went  to  the 
street  pageants,  we  went  to  the  balls  at  the  French 
Opera  House,  we  saw  the  masking  on  the  streets, 
and  when  the  carnival  was  finished  we  were  finished, 
ft)o. 

The  great  thing  about  the  carnival,  it  seems  to  me,  is 
that  is  bears  the  relation  to  the  life  of  the  city,  that  a 
well-developed  hobby  does  to  the  life  of  an  individual. 
It  keeps  the  city  young.  It  keeps  it  from  becoming 
pompous,  from  taking  itself  too  seriously,  from  getting 
into  a  rut.  It  stimulates  not  alone  the  young,  but  the 
grave  and  reverend  seigniors  also,  to  give  themselves 
up  for  a  little  while  each  year  to  play,  and  moreover  to 
use  their  imaginations  in  annually  devising  new  pageants 
and  costumes.  From  this  point  of  view  such  a  carnival 
would  be  a  good  thing  for  any  city. 

But  that  is  where  the  Latin  spirit  of  New  Orleans 

669 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

comes  in,  with  its  pleasing  combination  of  gaiety  and 
restraint.  You  could  not  hold  such  a  carnival  in  every 
city.  You  could  not  do  it  in  New  York.  For  more  im- 
portant even  that  the  pageants  and  the  balls,  is  the  car- 
nival frame  of  mind.  To  hold  a  carnival  such  as  New 
Orleans  holds,  a  city  must  know  how  to  be  lively  and 
playful  without  becoming  drunk,  without  breaking  bar- 
room mirrors,  upsetting  tables,  annoying  women,  thrust- 
ing "ticklers"  into  people's  faces,  jostling,  fighting,  com- 
mitting the  thousand  rough  vulgar  excesses  in  which 
New  York  indulges  every  New  Year's  Eve,  and  in  which 
it  would  indulge  to  an  even  more  disgusting  extent  un- 
der the  additional  license  of  the  mask. 

The  carnival — canie  vale,  farewell  flesh — which  ter- 
minates with  Mardi  Gras — *Tat  Tuesday,"  or  Shrove 
Tuesday,  the  day  before  the  beginning  of  Lent — comes 
down  to  us  from  pagan  times  by  way  of  the  Latin  coun- 
tries. The  "Cowbellions,"  a  secret  organization  of  Mo- 
bile, in  1 83 1  elaborated  the  idea  of  historical  and  legen- 
dary processions,  and  as  early  as  1837  New  Orleans  held 
grotesque  street  parades.  Twenty  years  later  the 
"Mystic  Krewe,"  now-  known  as  "Comus,"  appeared 
from  nowhere  and  disappeared  again.  The  success  of 
Comus  encouraged  the  formation  of  other  secret  socie- 
ties, each  having  its  own  parade  and  ball,  and  in  1872, 
Rex,  King  of  the  Carnival,  entered  his  royal  capital  of 
New  Orleans  in  honor  of  the  visit  of  the  Grand  Duke 
Alexis — who,  by  the  way,  is  one  of  countless  notables 
who  have  feasted  at  Antoine's. 

670 


ANTOINE'S  AND  MARDI  GRAS 

The  three  leading  carnival  societies,  Comus,  Momus, 
and  Proteus,  are  understood  to  be  connected  with  three 
of  the  city's  four  leading  clubs,  all  of  which  stand  within 
easy  range  of  one  another  on  the  uptown  side  of  Canal 
Street:  the  Boston  Club  (taking  its  name  from  an  old 
card  game);  the  Pickwick  (named  for  Dickens'  genial 
gentleman,  a  statue  of  whom  stands  in  the  lobby)  ;  the 
Louisiana,  a  young  men's  club ;  and  the  Chess,  Checkers 
and  Whist  Club.  The  latter  association  is,  I  believe,  the 
one  that  takes  no  part  in  the  carnival. 

Each  of  the  carnival  organizations  has  its  own  King 
and  Queen,  and  the  connection  between  certain  clubs 
and  certain  carnival  societies  may  be  guessed  from 
the  fact  that  the  Comus  Queen  and  Proteus  Queen 
always  appear  on  the  stand  in  front  of  the  Pickwick 
Club,  to  witness  their  respective  parades,  and  that 
the  Queen  of  the  entire  Carnival  appears  with  her 
maids  of  honor  on  the  stand  before  the  Boston  Club 
upon  the  day  of  Mardi  Gras,  to  witness  the  triumphal 
entry  and  parade  of  Rex.  As  Rex  passes  the  club  he 
sends  her  a  bouquet — the  official  indication  of  her  queen- 
ship.  That  night  she  appears  for  the  first  time  in  the 
glory  of  her  royal  robes  at  the  Rex  Ball,  which  is  held 
in  a  large  hall;  and  the  great  event  of  the  carnival,  from 
a  social  standpoint.  Is  the  official  visit,  on  the  same  night, 
of  Rex  and  his  Queen,  attended  by  their  court,  to 
the  King  and  Queen  of  Comus.  at  the  Comus  Ball,  held 
in  the  Opera  House. 

Passing    between    the    brilliantly    illuminated    flag- 

671 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

draped  buildings,  under  festoons  of  colored  electric 
lights,  the  street  parades,  with  their  spectacular  colored 
tioats,  their  bands,  their  negro  torch-bearers,  their 
strangely  costumed  masked  figures,  throwing  favors 
into  the  dense  crowds,  are  glorious  sights  for  children 
ranging  anywhere  from  eight  to  eighty  years  of  age. 
Public  masking  on  the  streets,  on  the  day  of  Mardi  Gras, 
is  also  an  amusing  feature  of  the  carnival. 

The  balls,  upon  the  other  hand,  are  social  events  of 
great  importance  in  the  city,  and  as  spectacles  they  are 
peculiarly  fine.  Invitations  to  these  balls  are  greatly 
coveted,  and  the  visitor  to  the  city  who  would  attend 
them,  must  exert  his  ''pull''  some  time  in  advance. 
The  invitations,  by  the  way,  are  not  sent  1)y  individ- 
uals, but  by  the  separate  organizations,  and  even  those 
young  ladies  who  are  so  fortunate  as  to  have  "call-outs" 
— cards  inclosed  with  their  invitations,  indicating  that 
they  are  to  be  asked  to  dance,  and  may  therefore  have 
seats  on  the  ground  floor — are  not  supposed  to  know 
from  what  man  these  cards  come.  .  Ladies  who  have  not 
received  call-outs,  and  gentlemen  who  are  not  mcml)ers 
of  the  societies,  are  packed  into  the  boxes  and  seats  above 
the  parquet  floor,  and  do  not  go  upon  the  dancing  lloor 
until  very  late  in  the  evening.  Throughout  each  ball 
the  members  of  the  society  giving  the  ball  continue  to 
wear  their  costumes  and  their  masks,  so  that  ladies, 
called  from  their  seats  to  dance,  often  find  themselves 
treading  a  measure  with  some  gallant  who  speaks 
in  a  strange  assumed  voice,  striving  to  maintain  the 

672     ^ 


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en 

ANTOINE'S  AND  MARDI  GRAS 

mystery  of  his  identity.  The  ladies,  upon  the  other 
hand,  are  not  in  costume  and  are  not  masked;  about 
them,  there  is  no  more  mystery  than  women  always 
have  about  them.  After  each  dance  the  masker  pro- 
duces a  present  for  his  partner — usually  a  pretty  bit 
of  jewelry.  Etiquette  not  only  allows,  but  insists,  that 
a  woman  accept  any  gift  offered  to  her  at  a  carnival 
ball,  and  it  is  said  that  by  this  means  many  a  young 
gentleman  has  succeeded  in  bestowing  upon  the  lady  of 
his  heart  a  piece  of  jewelry  the  value  of  which  would 
make  acceptance  of  the  gift  impossible  under  other  than 
carnival  conditions. 

After  the  balls  many  of  the  younger  couples  go  to  the 
Louisiane  and  Antoine's,  to  continue  the  dance,  and  as 
my  room  at  Antoine's  was  directly  over  one  of  the  danc- 
ing rooms  of  the  establishment,  I  might  make  a  shrewd 
guess  as  to  how  long  they  stayed  up,  after  my  compan- 
ion and  I  retired. 

Let  it  not  be  supposed  that  we  retired  early.  I  re- 
member well  the  look  of  the  pale  blue  dawn  of  Ash 
Wednesday  morning,  and  no  less  do  I  remember  a  con- 
versation with  a  gentleman  I  met  at  the  Louisiane,  just 
before  the  dawn  broke.  I  never  saw  him  before  and  I 
have  never  seen  him  since;  nor  do  I  know  his  name,  or 
where  he  came  from.  I  only  know  that  he  was  an 
agreeable,  friendly  person  who  did  not  wish  to  go  to 
bed. 

When  I  said  that  I  was  going  home  he  protested. 

"Don't  do  that!"  he  urged.     "There  's  a  nice  French 

^7Z 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

restaurant  in  this  town.  I  can't  think  of  the  name  of 
it.     Let 's  go  there." 

"Well,  how  can  we  go  if  you  don't  know  what  place 
it  is?"  I  asked,  intending  to  be  discouraging. 

The  young  man  looked  dazed  at  this.  Then  his  face 
brightened  suddenly. 

"Oh,  yes!"  he  cried.  "I  remember  the  name  now! 
It 's  the  Louisiane !  Come  on !  Let 's  get  our  coats  an' 
go  there!" 

"But,"  I  said,  "this  is  the  Louisiane  right  here." 

The  thought  seemed  to  stagger  him,  for  he  swayed 
ever  so  slightly. 

"All  right,"  he  said,  regarding  me  with  great  solem- 
nity.    Let 's  go  there !" 

I  have  wondered  since  if  this  same  young  man  may 
not  have  been  the  one  who,  returning  to  the  St.  Charles 
Hotel  in  the  early  hours  of  that  sad  Ash  Wednesday 
morning,  was  asked  by  the  clerk,  who  gave  him  his  key, 
whether  he  wished  to  leave  a  call. 

"What  day's  this?"  he  inquired. 

"Wednesday,"  said  the  clerk. 

"All  ri',"  replied  the  other,  moving  toward  .the  eleva- 
tor.    "Call  me  Saturday." 


674 


CHAPTER  LX 
FINALE 

Yonder  the  long  horizon  lies,  and  there  by  night  and  day 
The  old  ships  draw  to  home  again,  the  young  ships  sail  away; 
And  come  I  may,  but  go  I  must,  and  if  men  ask  you  why, 
You  may  put  the  blame  on  the  stars  and  the  sun  and  the  white  road  and 
the  sky ! 

— Gerald  Gould. 

IT  is  good  to  look  about  the  world;  but  always  there 
comes  a  time  when  the  restless  creature,  man,  hav- 
ing- yielded  to  the  call  of  the  seas  and  the  stars  and 
the  sky,  and  gone  a-journeying,  begins  to  think  of  home 
again.  Even  were  home  a  less  satisfactory,  a  less  happy 
place  than  it  is,  he  would  be  bound  to  think  of  it  after 
so  long  a  journey  as  that  upon  which  my  companion  and 
I  had  spent  so  many  months.  For,  just  as  it  is  neces- 
sary for  a  locomotive  to  go  every  so  often  for  an  over- 
hauling, so  it  is  necessary  for  the  traveler  to  return  to 
headquarters.  The  fastenings  of  his  wardrobe  trunk 
are  getting  loose,  and  the  side  of  it  has  been  stove  in; 
his  heels  are  running  down  in  back,  his  watch  needs 
regulating,  his  umbrella-handle  is  coming  loose,  he  is 
running  out  of  notebooks  and  pencils  and  has  broken  a 
blade  of  his  knife  in  trying  to  open  a  bottle  with  it 
(because  he  left  his  corkscrew  in  a  hotel  somewhere 

675 


AMERICAN  ADVENTURES 

along  the  way).  His  fountain  pen  has  sprung  a  leak 
and  spoiled  a  waistcoat,  his  razors  are  dull,  his  strop 
is  nicked,  and  he  has  run  out  of  the  kind  of  cigarettes 
and  cigars  he  likes.  One  lens  of  his  spectacles  has 
gotten  scratched,  his  mail  has  ceased  to  reach  him,  his 
light  suits  are  spotted,  baggy  and  worn,  and  his  winter 
suits  are  becoming  too  heavy  for  comfort  as  the  spring 
advances.  His  neckties  are  getting  string}-,  he  has 
hangnails  and  a  cough ;  he  never  could  fix  his  own  hang- 
nails, and  he  cannot  cure  his  cough  because  the  bottle 
of  glycerine  and  wild  cherry  provided  for  just  such  an 
emergency  by  the  loved  ones  at  home,  got  broken  on  the 
trip  from  Jacksonville  to  Montgomery,  and  went  drib- 
bling down  through  the  trunk,  ruining  his  reference 
books,  three  of  his  best  shirts,  and  the  only  decent  pair 
of  russet  shoes  he  had  left.  The  other  shoes  have  been 
ruined  in  various  ways ;  one  pair  was  spoiled  in  a  possum 
hunt  at  Clinton,  North  Carolina — and  it  was  worth  it, 
and  worth  the  overcoat  that  was  ruined  at  the  same 
time;  two  pairs  of  black  shoes  have  been  caked  up  with 
layers  and  layers  of  sticky  blacking,  and  one  pair  of 
russets  was  ruined  by  a  well  intentioned  negro  lad  in 
Memphis,  who  thought  they  would  look  better  painted 
red.  His  traveler's  checks  are  running  low  and  he  is 
continually  afraid  that,  amid  his  constantly  increasing 
piles  of  notes  and  papers,  he  will  lose  the  three  books  in 
each  of  which  remains  a  few  feet  of  "yellow  scrip" — the 
mileage  of  the  South — which  will  take  him  on  his  return 
journey  as  far  as  Washington. 

676 


FINALE 

Nor  is  that  all.  The  determining  factor  in  his  de- 
cision to  go  home  lies  in  the  havoc  wrought  by  a  long 
succession  of  hotel  laundries — laundries  which  starch 
the  bosoms  of  soft  silk  shirts,  w^hich  mark  the  owner's 
name  in  ink  upon  the  hems  of  sheer  linen  handkerchiefs 
which  already  have  embroidered  monograms,  which  rip 
holes  in  those  handkerchiefs  and  then  fold  them  so  that 
the  holes  are  concealed  until,  some  night,  he  whips  one 
confidently  from  the  pocket  of  his  dress  suit,  and  reveals 
it  looking  like  a  tattered  battle-flag;  laundries  which 
leave  long  trails  of  iron  rust  on  shirt-bosoms,  which  rip 
out  seams,  tear  oft'  buttons,  squeeze  out  new  standing 
collars  to  a  saw-tooth  edge,  iron  little  pieces  of  red  and 
brown  string  into  collars,  cuffs,  and  especially  into  the 
bosoms  of  dress  shirts,  and  "finish"  dress  shirts  and 
collars,  not  only  in  the  sense  of  ending  their  days  of  use- 
fulness as  fast  as  possible,  but  also  by  making  them  shine 
like  the  interiors  of  glazed  porcelain  bathtubs.  But  the 
greatest  cruelty  of  the  hotel  laundry  is  to  socks.  It  is 
not  that  they  do  more  damage  to  socks,  than  to  other 
garments,  but  that  the  laundry  devil  has  been  able  to 
think  of  a  greater  variety  of  means  for  the  destruction 
of  socks  than  for  the  destruction  of  any  other  kind  of 
garment.  He  begins  by  fastening  to  each  sock  a  cloth- 
covered  tin  tag,  attached  by  means  of  prongs.  On  this 
tag  he  puts  certain  marks  which  will  mean  nothing  to 
the  next  laundry.  The  next  laundry  therefore  attaches 
other  tin  tags,  either  ripping  off  the  old  ones  (leaving 
holes  where  the  prongs  went  through)   or  else  letting 

677 


AMERICAN  AD\'EXTURES 

them  remain  in  place,  so  that,  after  a  while,  the  whole 
top  of  the  sock  is  covered  with  tin,  making  it  an  extraor- 
dinarily imcomforta])le  things  to  wear,  and  a  strancje 
thing  to  look  at.  There  is  still  another  way  in  which 
the  laundry  devil  tortures  the  sock-owner.  He  can  find 
ways  to  shrink  any  sock  that  is  not  made  of  solid  heavy 
silk;  and  of  course  he  can  rip  silk  socks  all  to  pieces. 
He  will  take  silk-and-wool  socks  of  normal  length,  and 
in  one  washing  will  so  reduce  them  that  you  can  hardly 
get  your  foot  into  them,  and  that  the  upper  margins 
of  them  come  only  about  an  inch  above  your  shoe-tops. 
People  who  have  no  business  to  do  so,  are  thus  enabled, 
when  you  are  seated,  to  see  the  tops  of  your  socks  and  to 
amuse  themselves  by  counting  the  tin  tags  with  which 
they  are  adorned.  Also,  the  socks,  being  so  short,  be- 
come better  pullers  than  the  garters,  so  that  instead  of 
the  garters  holding  the  socks  up,  the  socks  pull  the 
garters  down.  This  usually  occurs  as  you  are  walking 
up  the  aisle  in  church,  or  in  the  middle  of  a  dance,  and 
of  course  your  garter  manages  to  come  unclasped,  into 
the  bargain,  and  goes  trailing  after  you.  like  a  con\ict's 
ball  and  chain. 

For  a  time  you  can  stand  this  sort  of  thing,  but  pres- 
ently you  begin  to  pine  for  the  delicate  washtub  artistry 
of  Amanda,  at  home ;  for  vestments  which,  w^hen  sent  to 
the  wash,  do  not  come  back  riddled  with  holes,  or  smell- 
ing as  though  thev  had  l)een  washed  in  carbolic  acid,  or 
in  the  tub  with  a  large  fish. 

So,  presently,  you  fold  up  your  rags  like  the  Arabs, 

678 


FINALE 

fasten  your  battered  baggage  shut  as  best  you  can,  put 
it  on  a  taxi,  and  head  for  the  railway  station.  No  train 
ever  looks  so  handsome  as  the  home-bound  train  you  find 
there.  No  engineer  ever  looks  so  sturdy  and  capable, 
leaning  from  the  window  of  his  cab,  as  the  one  who  is  to 
take  you  home. 

Up  through  the  South  you  fly,  past  many  places  you 
have  seen  before,  past  towns  where  you  have  friends 
whom  you  would  like  to  see  again — only  not  now !  Now 
nothing  will  do  but  home !  Out  of  the  region  of  mag- 
nolias, palmettoes  and  live-oaks  you  pass  into  the  region 
of  pines,  and  out  of  the  region  of  pines  into  that  of 
maples  and  elms.  At  last  you  come  to  Washing- 
ton. .  .  .  Only  a  few  hours  longer!  How  satisfyingly 
the  train  slips  along !  You  are  not  conscious  of  curves, 
or  even  of  turning  wheels  beneath  you.  Your  progress 
is  like  the  swift  glide  of  a  flying  sled.  Baltimore,  Wil- 
mington, Philadelphia,  Trenton.  Nothing  to  do  but 
look  from  the  car  windows  and  rejoice.  Not  that  you 
love  the  South  less,  but  that  you  love  home  more. 

'T  wonder  if  we  will  ever  go  on  such  a  trip  as  this 
again?"  you  say  to  your  companion. 

'T  don't  believe  so,"  he  replies. 

"It  does  n't  seem  now  as  though  we  should,"  you  re- 
turn. ''But  do  you  remember? — we  talked  the  same 
way  when  we  were  coming  home  before.  What  will  it 
be  two  years  hence  ?" 

"True,"  he  says.  "And  of  course  there  's  Conan 
Doyle.     He  always  thinks  he  's  never  going  to  do  it  any 

679 


ami<:ricax  adm<:xtures 

more.  But  in  a  year  or  so  Sherlock  Holmes  pops  out 
again,  drawn  by  Freddy  Steele,  all  over  the  cover  of 
'Collier's.'  Not  that  your  stuff  is  as  good  as  Doyle's, 
but  that  the  general  case  is  somewhat  parallel." 

"Doyle  has  killed  Holmes,"  you  put  in. 

'*Yes,"  he  agrees,  "and  several  times  you  've  almost 
killed  me." 

Then  as  the  train  speeds  scornfully  through  Newark, 
without  stopping,  he  catches  sight  of  a  vast  concrete 
building — a  warehouse  of  some  kind,  apparently. 

"Look!"  he  cries.     "Is  n't  it  wonderful?" 

"That  building?" 

"Not  the  building  itself.  The  thought  that  we  don't 
have  to  get  off  here  and  go  through  it.  Think  what  it 
would  be  like  if  we  were  on  our  travels!  There  would 
be  a  lot  of  citizens  in  frock  coats.  Probably  the  mayor 
would  be  there,  too.  They  would  drive  us  to  that  build- 
ing, and  take  us  in,  and  then  they  would  cry  if  we  re- 
fused to  go  to  the  fourteenth  floor,  where  they  keep  the 
dried  prunes." 

The  train  slips'  across  the  Jersey  meadows  and  darts 
into  the  tunnel. 

•  "Now,"  he  remarks  hopefully,  "we  are  really  going 
to  get  home — if  this  tunnel  does  n't  drop  in  on  us." 

And  when  the  train  has  emerged  from  the  tunnel,  and 
you  have  emerged  from  the  train,  he  says:  "Now 
there  's  no  doubt  that  we  are  going  to  get  home — unless 
we  are  smashed  up  in  a  taxi,  on  the  way." 

And  when  the  taxi  stops  at  your  front  door,  and  you 

680 


FINALE 

bid  him  farewell  before  he  continues  on  his  way  to  his 
own  front  door,  he  says:  "Now  you 're  going  to  get 
home  for  sure— unless  the  elevator  drops." 

And  when  the  elevator  has  not  dropped,  but  has  trans- 
ported you  in  safety  to  the  door  of  your  apartment,  and 
you  have  searched  out  the  old  key,  and  have  unlocked  the 
door,  and  entered,  and  found  happiness  within,  then  you 
wonder  to  yourself  as  I  once  heard  a  little  boy  wonder, 
when  he  had  gone  out  of  his  own  yard,  and  had  found  a 
number  of  large  cans  of  paint,  and  had  upset  them  on 

himself :  ^ 

''I  have  a  very  happy  home,"  he  said,  reflectively.       i 
wonder  why  I  don't  seem  to  stay  around  it  more?" 


68i 


^x* 


~4f^ 


